


Thicker Than Water (but not as sweet)

by Xparrot



Series: infinitely simple and perfectly complicated [5]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: (even if Cecil adores his fangs), (he's just terrible at it), (not evil), Angst, Asexual Romance, Blood Drinking, Carlos is a really bad vampire, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Vampires, kind of an eating disorder?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-10 18:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1163047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the things that had and could happen to Carlos in Night Vale, becoming a vampire was practically mundane. Hardly worth mentioning, really.  One day you're a regular mortal human, and the next night you wake up with fangs...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As with the other stories in this series, this isn't really a sequel. Cecil has no tentacles this time around; he and Carlos are still both asexual, but that's a tangential plot point. 
> 
> Otherwise this story may need a warning. Or else an apology. It was meant to be a short little thing and then it grew, getting increasingly more outrageous as it went along. It's not ridiculously angsty so much as ridiculous _and_ angsty and yeah, I have no idea.

"What do you mean, my fangs?" Carlos asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes to blink at his boyfriend in confusion. He'd laid down this afternoon to try to ease a burgeoning migraine; the next thing he knew the doorbell was waking him to find the room dark, sundown long past. He'd stumbled up to get the door before it registered that it was probably Cecil coming over after his show, and he could let himself in.

While the headache had faded, he was still disoriented from sleep. All the same, Carlos was fairly certain Cecil had never greeted him by saying his fangs looked lovely.

"There," Cecil said, pointing at Carlos's mouth. "They're an exquisite pair, let me say."

"What are you talking—ow!" Carlos reached up to his mouth, where something had cut his bottom lip.

"And _sharp_ , too," Cecil said, in the same captivated tone with which he complimented Carlos's other features.

Carlos prodded his lip. It wasn't bleeding, but he did feel two sharp points, extending out of his mouth more than his overbite could account for. "Excuse me," Carlos said, leaving Cecil in the doorway while he ran to the bathroom. After making sure the door was shut and locked, he took the towel off the mirror.

Then stared. Slowly raised his hand to the glass, and kept staring.

Carlos's reflection failed to stare back. Primarily because he didn't have one. The mirror showed a faultless image of an empty bathroom.

Carlos looked down to verify his presence: hands, shirt, jeans, socks, all visually perceptible. But not apparently reflecting the proper quality of light for his looking glass.

Carefully he hung the towel over the mirror and went back to the living room, where Cecil was humming a polka to coax the TV remote out from under the futon.

"Cecil," Carlos said, "I have an important scientific inquiry. Can you see me?"

Cecil straightened up to study Carlos intently for a moment, then nodded. "You're looking beautiful as ever," he confirmed. "The points enhance your smile, if anything."

"I think there's something wrong with my mirror," Carlos said. "I'll have to run some tests."

"Oh?" Cecil asked. Before he could continue, Carlos grabbed Cecil's arm to pull him closer, staring deeply into his eyes.

Or, more accurately, staring into the reflections in Cecil's eyes. His lamp showed up clearly. Carlos himself did not. "A lot of tests," Carlos muttered.

"Carlos?" Cecil said. "You're pinching my arm."

"What? Oh!" Carlos let go, staring in shock at Cecil's wrist, circled in red and white strictures matching Carlos's fingers. "I'm so sorry, I didn't realize I was gripping that tightly—"

"It's all right," Cecil said. "Altered strength requires an adjustment period."

"Why would my strength be altered?"

Cecil was rubbing his wrist, but he gave Carlos a concerned look, as if Carlos were the injured party. "Carlos, do you know what happened to you today?"

"Today? Nothing in particular. Like I texted you, I went out to help the geologists and biologists explore the cave complex past the sand wastes. It's quite large; it looks like it might extend as far as Radon Canyon. And the biologists have already found several new species. There's a mega-bat, the largest Chiroptera seen in North America—"

"Yes, the bats," Cecil said, nodding. "And you encountered one of them? Its fangs, specifically?"

"Canines," Carlos corrected, "and yes, when we were tagging them, I got nipped. But it wasn't anything serious..." He trailed off, looked down at his hand and ripped the bandaid off his palm.

The marks underneath were barely evident, the scabs already healed into scars, as if they were weeks old, though they'd been an angry red when disinfected this afternoon. It had taken a minute to pry the bat off his hand, once it had sunk its teeth in. The bite hadn't hurt much—analgesic saliva, according to the biologists—but Carlos didn't care for being gnawed on, even in the name of science, and he'd been developing a headache. He'd called it a day for field work and went home to shower off the cave dust and change into a proper lab coat.

But by the time he'd gotten back into town, his head had been pounding terribly. He forgot about the shower, didn't even bother pulling the shades to block out the piercing sunlight, just buried his face in his futon and pressed a pillow over his head. And that was the last thing he remembered until Cecil had rung his doorbell.

His head didn't hurt anymore, and neither did his hand. On the other hand, when he pressed his fingers over his wrist he failed to locate any pulse. "Cecil," Carlos said, "are you telling me I was bitten by a Night Vale bat and now I'm becoming, what, a were-bat?"

"No," Cecil said, chuckling in a fond and only slightly condescending way. "A were-bat, what a silly idea! Therianthropes have the same mass in any form; how could a bat your size fly? No, you're becoming a vampire. Or have already become one, it seems."

"A...what?"

"A vampire—from a bat bite, no less, very old-school. I hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of filing your change of status paperwork with city hall." Cecil paused. "...Do you know about vampires? Or are they like bloodstones and invisible architecture?—not that you're uneducated, of course! But there are shocking gaps in standard outsider curriculums..."

"No, I've heard of vampires," Carlos said slowly, considering. "I suppose that does explain the mirror. And the fangs..."

Or, technically, an extreme extension and sharpening of the maxillary cuspids; but Carlos had been in Night Vale long enough to call a fang a fang. Especially when he could slice his lower lip on them if he didn't take care talking.

The cuts didn't bleed, however, and he found they healed quickly. Experimentation revealed other benefits to his condition as well. If he didn't have the strength of ten men, it was at least two or three times increased; he could move a refrigerator or lift Cecil without much trouble, though he had to learn to be careful not to crack glass cups and beakers when he picked them up. And his vision was better than 20-20 for the first time in his life.

Sunlight now gave him awful migraines, so he switched to sleeping days and working nights. Since Cecil liked to sleep in anyway, he began staying up later after his show, to spend time with his boyfriend before Carlos went to work. He usually had the lab to himself now, unless one of his colleagues was suffering from insomnia. And no one on the science team was so gauche as to gossip about how their director now had eyes that glowed vivid green when they caught the light right, or canines to match a canine.

Cecil openly admired the new dentition on his show (Carlos recorded the daytime portions he slept through, to listen to during labwork), rhapsodizing about their gleaming crowns and refined points. _"They're the perfect something extra to elevate that sculpted mouth from elegant, to a masterpiece worthy of being extracted and displayed in a museum,"_ he would sigh, as Carlos rolled his eyes and suppressed a smile and refined his mathematical calculation of the line between flattering and unnerving.

For the first few days he only let Cecil admire from afar, not sure he could manage even their usual close-mouthed kissing without doing one of them injury. But given how Cecil was about his hair, Carlos wasn't surprised when he worked up the courage to ask to touch his teeth. He agreeably opened his mouth to let Cecil run a finger up and down the fangs.

Though he yanked back when Cecil gave a breathless yelp of pain, familiar from stubbed toes and pinched fingers. "Sorry, did you—"

"It's all right," Cecil said, inspecting the tiny crimson pearl of blood welling at the tip of his index finger. "I've gotten worse from papercuts and gremlins." He held his bleeding finger out to Carlos, casually asked, "Would you like a taste?"

Carlos recoiled as if Cecil were offering a slice of whole wheat bread. "What? No, of course not!"

"I'll just wash it off anyway; why waste it?"

"I don't want your blood!—At least not to drink; the biologists might like a plasma sample to compare with last month's—"

"But you're a vampire?"

"Not like that, apparently," Carlos said. "No thirst for blood here."

Cecil frowned at him. "Carlos, you shouldn't suppress your natural urges. —Or unnatural urges, for that matter; those tend to be even more trouble, if they go untended—"

"I'm not," Carlos said. "I don't have any bloodlust. It was one of the first things I tested; but no, blood smells as repellent to me as it ever did, and I'm sure it wouldn't taste any better. And I can consume regular food as before. It seems that part of the bat's, um, condition, didn't take."

Cecil was still frowning; but when Carlos offered to prove his appetite over dinner, he agreed.

 

* * *

 

Carlos was more grateful than surprised to be missing out on the traditional hunger of the undead. A general distaste for blood—among other bodily fluids—was one of the reasons he'd never studied biology extensively (a distaste for being bitten by random creatures was another reason, though in Night Vale that was moot.) It wasn't a phobia; he'd never fainted at the sight of gore. But he preferred blood, his own or other's, to stay on the inside where it belonged.

Cecil's attitude was more flexible; he prayed in a bloodstone circle like most upright Night Vale citizens and replenished the stones monthly without hesitation. Plus he'd lived through many more Night Vale Valentine's Days. So while he didn't press Carlos on the matter personally, he did fuss on the radio about his boyfriend's change in lifestyle, or lack thereof. _"We're figuring out the mechanics of non-perforating kisses, and I can't say I mind the practice, dear listeners! But I do hope that Carlos can come to accept that such gorgeous teeth are meant for biting..."_

Carlos found it endearing that Cecil would worry about him, in spite of his improved strength and healing and the rest. Though to keep it from getting out of hand—and deter Cecil from sharing every aspect of his life with the entire town—Carlos avoided giving his boyfriend more reasons for concern. He tried not to wince at bright lights around Cecil, or complain when he accidentally nipped his lips.

And he didn't mention it when he woke up one evening and found his vision had lost all color, as if he were living in a black and white movie. His acuity remained crisp and clear, but the color blindness did hamper driving to the lab, when he forgot whether a red light was on the top or the bottom; and the pH test strips he used for quick analyses were a loss.

The next night Carlos opted to avoid driving and work from home. He was feeling a little under the weather anyway, a tickle in his throat and joints aching with the onset of a cold. But surely his vampirically boosted immune system would make short work of a simple virus.

The night after that, he had dinner plans with Cecil, but Carlos overslept. Dinnertime was long past when he finally dragged himself out of bed. Swallowing water hurt his throat; he decided to make tea instead.

His phone rang just as the kettle started whistling. The combined noise was so excruciating that Carlos dropped to his knees on the floor, clapped his hands over his ears and shouted at them to _shut up!_

He was still on the floor an hour or so later—he wasn't sure how long, but the kettle finally stopped shrieking, having boiled off all the water. The phone had given up a little earlier. He'd bitten his fangs halfway through his bottom lip at its last earsplitting trill; there was no blood as usual, but it stung, if not as badly as his ears ached.

The silence helped ease that agony, but only for a moment before it was shattered by a deafening banging on his door. Carlos pressed his hands back over his ears and begged for quiet. Instead, the locks' tumblers crashed over the key, followed by footsteps thundering on the floor—apparently an elephant had come to call. An elephant with a booming baritone, that somehow didn't hurt quite as much as the rest, when it said, "Carlos? Oh, dear Carlos—"

Or maybe it was, _Oh dear, Carlos_ ; Cecil's inflection could be ambiguous.

Cecil took off his shoes, his stocking feet only hippopotamus-loud; though the shriek of tortured wood when he wrenched open the silverware drawer made Carlos curl into a fetal ball.

Then a hand touched his shoulder, and Cecil's remarkably un-agonizing voice murmured, "Carlos, here, please, open your mouth—"

Carlos reluctantly did, and jerked in painful surprise when the teaspoon banged against his fangs, ringing as loud as a gong inside his head. Then the spoon was past his lips, delivering a disgusting, warm, thick liquid that coated his tongue and dribbled down his unwilling throat.

He coughed—but the explosion of noise didn't hurt his ears; and when the spoon dropped out of his mouth, its clatter on the floor was reasonably painless. Carlos lowered his hands from his ears, cracked an eyelid to see Cecil squatting next to him, in full color again, his face screwed up in concern.

Carlos wrinkled his nose, working his tongue to clear off the nauseating metallic tang. "What kind of medicine—" he started to ask, then recognized the taste at the same time he noticed the paper towel Cecil had wadded over his finger.

Jumping to his feet, he grabbed an unwashed glass from the drainboard and filled it with tap water, not even checking its color before he washed his mouth out. "Blergh! Cecil, I told you, I don't want to drink your—"

"No, I told _you_ ," Cecil cut him off, in a tone Carlos had rarely heard from him in person and more associated with letters from Steve Carlsberg, "you have to listen to unnatural urges—"

"I don't _have_ any urges!" Carlos cried. "Natural or unnatural!"

"Which is why you ended up so blood-starved that your beautiful brain nearly inverted itself?" Cecil said.

"Apparently, yes!"

"—Oh." Cecil rocked back on his heels, the irritation in his face lightening to puzzlement. "So you really don't _want_ my blood? I thought you were refusing out of some misguided outsider etiquette."

"I'm pretty sure avoiding exsanguinating your boyfriend is good manners anywhere," Carlos said tartly. "But yes, I really don't want it. There are few things I can think of less appetizing than a mouthful of human hemoglobin."

Cecil looked disproportionately distressed by this revelation. "But according to the book—"

"What book?"

"I stopped by the library yesterday—or rather, woke up in the library last night—"

"You did? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I haven't seen you since then. It was for work, there's a new read-or-die program. But as I was there anyway, before I fought my way out I took the opportunity to research vampires."

"Research?" Carlos repeated, a bit skeptically. It wasn't that he lacked faith in his boyfriend's scholarship, so much as in Night Vale in general.

"And from what I was reading, a vampire's mate is supposed to smell and taste _delicious_ , like a dessert or an addictive drug—"

"...Cecil, what was this book called?"

"Ah, I don't recall the title, but it was a teenage girl's autobiography—the memoirs of one Isabella Swan?"

"Uh-huh. Remember what I told you about outsider fiction?"

"People actually write fiction about vampires?" Cecil said. "Whatever for? Though I suppose that does explain the implausible descriptions of mountains. Do you think the vampires were as poorly researched?"

"Likely even less so," Carlos said.

"But vampires do need to drink blood, whatever it tastes like," Cecil said. "Perhaps if you tried more, you could find what's palatable to you?"

"Hmm," Carlos said. "You have a point; I should carry out some experiments," and Cecil grinned to have inspired science.

 

* * *

 

Carlos's first stop was at the Night Vale Blood Bank, which looked startlingly like a traditional financial institution, but kept inverse hours. Which was likely because, he realized from the teller's toothy smile, its staff were vampires. Well, it made sense that they'd know the business.

His own smile worked wonders—Cecil wasn't the only Night Vale citizen to swoon at a prominent pair of fangs, and Carlos was willing to employ his location-specific charms in the name of scientific pursuit. He got a full selection of samples, A, B, AB, O; plus copper-based T and R; and a pouch labeled 31-Antartica that the teller slipped him under the counter with a wink, saying, "For our most _special_ customers." (It was the same color and consistency as human blood, but seemed to move independently in the plastic pouch. Carlos left it in there with a mental note to burn it later.)

His first thought was intravenous delivery, but he was stymied trying to find a vein on his person. Which was in keeping with the biologists' observations that the mega-bat's circulatory system was vestigial, as well as the evidence of his own unbleeding lips and still heart. It seemed that vampires, ironically, had no blood of their own. 

So ingestion it was. He tasted the various blood-types in a blind trial, squirting samples into sterilized teaspoons and recording his observations in a spreadsheet on his laptop. The scientific rigor didn't help, however; he couldn't choke down a single spoonful. As repulsive as warm, newly shed blood was, cold and stale was an order of magnitude worse. He doubted it could have much nutritional value anyway, with that taste.

So maybe it had to be fresh. There was a logical follow-up experiment, but Carlos hesitated, his metaphorical boot of science hovering over the figurative next step.

—And occasionally Cecil's habit of discussing Carlos's research on the air, often (coincidentally?) right at Carlos's eureka moments, led to a confusing mental echo effect, as if his thoughts were being narrated to the town just as he had them. 

At last Carlos bit the figurative bullet and asked for a few blood donors among the science team. He was surprised but gratified by the number of his colleagues who showed up to volunteer their veins, but was disturbed by how many of them readily presented their wrists or necks on the spot, like they expected him to bare his fangs and bite—and were looking forward to it, by their expressions.

Some of them hadn't been in Night Vale long enough to account for suicidal behavior. The actual explanation didn't occur to Carlos until he caught two chemists with their heads together over a book—the same memoirs Cecil had been researching. Apparently in the absence of broodingly romantic vampires, lab-coat-wearing scientist vampires were a decent substitute. 

Since Carlos wasn't positive how vampirism was spread, and personally had no desire to chew on anyone, he used hypodermic needles to draw samples via venipuncture. He dismissed the sample providers before any taste tests, in the name of objectivity, and to not offend his colleagues' generosity by spitting up their donations in front of them.

Fresh blood was...he drew the line at 'palatable'; but if he closed his eyes and swallowed fast, he could get it down. It needed to be less than an hour from the vein, so storage was out. And it had to be human; his stomach rejected other species' plasma. Even among the human samples, there were differences in taste from person to person, which he noted on a qualitative scale from "absolutely abhorrent" to "mildly revolting". 

Fortunately there was a range of willing donors among the scientists—and the rest of the town, once Cecil accidentally-only-probably-on-purpose mentioned Carlos's predicament on his show. Further experiments proved that Carlos, if he ate real food regularly and drank plenty of water, could last three days before his vision lost color; and as little as a teaspoon of needle-drawn blood was enough to stave off the deprivation symptoms. So he was hardly in danger of sucking the town dry, and managing his condition was simply a matter of scheduling a regular rotation of donors.

Cecil was disappointed not to be included on this roster. "I can make myself available anytime..."

"That's not necessary," Carlos said. "There are enough volunteers for a six-month rotation and half a dozen extra for emergency coverage."

"But I don't mind—"

Carlos sighed and opened his spreadsheet. "I only included donors who fell within this range of the flavor spectrum," he explained, highlighting the "mildly revolting" rows.

Cecil scanned the list of names, then looked to Carlos, his face performing a three-act tragedy in two seconds. "But I'm not on there—does my blood taste that awful to you?"

"I'm sorry, Cecil," Carlos said. "It doesn't mean anything; taste is merely the chemical interaction of proteins with receptor cells on the palate. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you," and he closed his laptop and leaned over it to kiss Cecil, carefully around his fangs, as both apology and affirmation.

 

* * *

 

Meanwhile life in Night Vale continued as usual, given a value of 'usual' that wouldn't be accepted anywhere else. There was a puppy outbreak at the movie cinema; then a giant floating head over the scrublands, and after that the deadly sidewalk cracks. Carlos and his team were kept busy researching and occasionally saving the town, day and night.

With so much to do, it was only of passing note to Carlos when he started needing his glasses again for close work. And he'd finally mastered the trick of not slicing open his lip on his own teeth, so he only realized his rapid healing had slowed when he twisted his ankle running from an ox-sized basilisk. It was annoying when moonlight started to give him headaches, almost as bad as the solar-induced migraines; he ended up staying in bed for three nights come the next full moon.

Cecil brought him tea and aspirin (Night Vale's own FDA had yet to approve any other over-the-counter painkillers, and Cecil knew that Carlos didn't trust the wide variety of under-the-counter pills), massaged Carlos's neck and looked concerned. "It's just a headache; I'm not turning into a werewolf," Carlos joked, but Cecil went out and bought wolfbane garlands from the Ralph's to festoon both their bedrooms. Apparently while vampires were no big deal, lycanthropes were serious business. Or maybe Cecil was just worried about changes to Carlos's hair.

Carlos himself had bigger concerns. Such as arriving at the lab one night to find equipment smashed and tables overturned. 

Cecil, who had come along to observe some science, looked at the piles of broken glass and inquired brightly, "Oh, are you redecorating?"

Carlos resisted the urge to kick half a shattered flask at him. "Not by choice," he said through gritted teeth. "I _thought_ you said that secret police raids weren't scheduled for another two weeks."

"Ah, that," Cecil said, fetching a dustpan and squatting next to him. "I don't think this was the police. There were a few reports of a black helicopter over Big Rico's this evening—no one actually attested to seeing it land, of course, but who would?"

"Black? But why would the world government care about my research? I haven't seen any vague but menacing unmarked vans parked outside for months."

"Possibly it was at the behest of the local cabal," Cecil said, and then at Carlos's quizzical look, clarified, "The county's vampire cabal? You have paid your monthly membership dues, haven't you?"

"My what? To the what?"

Cecil muttered under his breath something uncomplimentary about outsider education, then explained, "The nation's vampires have an extensive network of cabals. Mostly to handle legal issues, I think. They're not very involved in Night Vale, but you should probably register. This might've been a simple introductory raid."

When Carlos thought back, he did remember receiving a packet in the mail inviting him to take advantage of an exclusive opportunity for people like him. He'd assumed it was another offer from the International Association of Generic Science. "They ransacked my lab because I neglected to sign up for the vampire rotary club?"

"Probably," Cecil nodded. "Unless any of your research could impact vampiric interests."

"Vampiric interests..." Carlos swore and ran for the refrigeration unit in the corner. Its lock still appeared intact, as were its contents. He sighed in relief and closed it up tight again.

Cecil didn't ask, just cheerfully helped sweep up the debris and set the tables upright. Though he frowned when Carlos asked for a hand carrying the dustbin of scrap out to the dumpster. "You can't manage it yourself?"

"My, uh, I wrenched my shoulder moving that table," Carlos covered, rather than admit that his strength barely exceeded a regular human's anymore.

Cecil didn't reply, just reached over to open Carlos's lab coat and yank up his sweatshirt.

"Hey!" Carlos glared, shoving the sweatshirt down again with his elbow.

"You've lost weight," Cecil said.

"It's just your imagination," Carlos said, pushing the bin towards the door.

Cecil followed him. "Your belt's a couple notches in."

"It's okay, I needed to lose a few pounds."

"No you didn't."

"What, am I too skinny to be perfect?" Carlos said, going for teasing but it came out harsh, by Cecil's abrupt silence. "—Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. But really, I'm fine."

"You don't appear fine," Cecil said, without further amendment,which was abnormal even by Night Vale standards. A month before the vampire bat attack, Carlos had had the flu, and Cecil had with complete honesty assured him that a sheen of fever-sweat perfectly complemented his complexion. 

Carlos stopped wrestling with the dustbin to look at his boyfriend. Cecil's lips were pulled down, tight and unhappy. "Hey," Carlos said awkwardly. "I told you, I'm sorry; I'm just on edge tonight."

"Every night—you've been short-tempered all week," Cecil said, not unkindly but matter-of-fact. He cupped Carlos's cheek, giving him a look of such unvarnished fondness that Carlos's temper, however short, couldn't survive it. "I'm not upset, I'm concerned. You look...not as healthy."

Carlos ran an uneasy hand through his hair, though that wasn't where Cecil was looking for once. "How so?" While Carlos had never cared enough about his appearance to be bothered by his lack of a reflection, it did impede self-examination. 

Cecil studied his face, brushing the tender skin under Carlos's eyes with his fingertip. "You've got bigger bags here than usual. And you're wan."

"I'm a vampire," Carlos reminded. "Pallor is part of the image. And I haven't been sleeping well lately, but that'll pass, it always does."

"And you're wearing a sweatshirt under your labcoat."

"It's a cool night." Lately the lab had been getting downright freezing, even for the desert; he'd been meaning to check for microclimate variations. Though Cecil was only in short sleeves now, Carlos noted, despite his usual sensitivity to chills.

"Have you been eating enough?" Cecil asked.

Carlos rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm eating. And yes, I'm drinking blood regularly, every three days; do you want me to show you the calendar?"

"Are you sure that's enough? Most vampires feed daily..."

Carlos grimaced at his stomach's queasy twisting. "It's enough for me; I doubt I could manage more. Besides, it may soon be a moot point."

"Oh?"

Carlos brought Cecil over to the refrigerator. The hum of its cooling coils tended to interfere with the secret police's listening devices. He took out one of the test-tubes of samples to show Cecil. "This might be what the cabal was after. I'm working with the biologists to develop an antidote."

Cecil examined the test-tube with polite incomprehension. "An antidote for what?"

"For the bat-bite. After everything else in this town, the cure for vampirism can't be too hard to crack," Carlos explained. "These compounds are almost ready to test. It's why I've been so busy lately."

"I see." Cecil brightened. "A cure, how interesting!"

"So you won't mind? If I become human again?" Carlos asked. "I thought you might be disappointed if I lost the fangs..."

Cecil smiled at him, looking him in the eyes, and not the eyeteeth. "They do give you a distinguished look, but your old teeth were perfectly lovely as well. And if this is the science you want to do, of course you should!"

 

* * *

 

The biologists had collected a number of mice, trapped near the mega-bat cave, that exhibited unusual hardiness, carnivorous tendencies, and telltale dentition. They were fed a steady diet of other mice, and occasionally increased their population by converting rather than killing their prey.

Carlos borrowed some of these subjects to test his possible cures. Compounds 1 through 16 were busts. Lucky 17—Carlos always had the best luck with primes, and since arriving in Night Vale had come to rely on this superstition rather than discount it—initially showed promise. The vampire mice injected with the chemical exhibited a reduction in tooth length and sharpness, and were no longer light-adverse. Moreover, a stethoscope detected the rapid patter of tiny rodent hearts once again pumping blood, their circulatory systems miraculously restored.

There were, unfortunately, side effects. For one, the mice's fur turned emerald green. Also they all died within forty-eight hours of reverting, for no reason that Carlos could determine. The compound was non-poisonous; the bloodtests came back clean, and the bodies showed no signs of physical infirmity. It was as if their hearts simply gave up and quit.

"Perhaps they were celebrating their restored mortality," Cecil suggested. He stopped by the lab every night after his show to ask about Carlos's progress, enthusiastic no matter how snappishly Carlos answered.

Which was, Carlos was ashamed to admit, more often the case than not. He still wasn't sleeping well. Though he was in bed the entire time the sun was up, hours longer than he'd ever slept as a mortal man, his repose was restless, tossing and turning. When he slept alone he was cold, but when Cecil shared the bed it was too hot. He woke every evening with his head aching, even with the blackout curtains drawn tight. 

The insomnia upset his concentration and made it difficult to focus on his work, which didn't improve Carlos's temper any. The other scientists quit showing up at the lab at night at all; even the late-night staff at Big Rico's stopped trying to make small-talk with him. Only Cecil was undeterred.

Carlos would've been more grateful for his company if Cecil hadn't also continued to throw him worried looks like he was practicing for the Olympics fretting team. On the radio he'd soliloquize, _"When someone you care about is suffering, it's difficult not to be able to help. Even when they deny wanting any assistance, their need can call to you in a louder voice, just as the light of a dying star is bright enough to shine through any curtain we draw in a vain effort to sleep through the night..."_

"I'm not _suffering_ ," Carlos told Cecil. "You make me sound like some sort of undead invalid."

"But you do look ill," Cecil said. "Your face is getting pinched—and while your cheekbones are admittedly spectacular, I'd rather not have everyone in town seeing them so clearly."

"Then maybe you should stop talking about me on your show! This evening Herschel and Megan Wallaby showed up at my door with a tureen of liquefied chicken—not soup; a whole chicken. Head and feet and all. And they were sure to tell me that they didn't drain any of the blood after plucking it."

"Did you try it?"

"No!" At Cecil's anxious look Carlos took a deep breath, lowered his voice and said, "Animal blood isn't an option anyway."

"Don't drink it, then," Cecil said. "There are plenty of people willing to give blood for a cause as worthy as you—you can have as much as mine as you want—"

"Cecil, I don't want any of your blood! Or anybody else's!"

"Have you talked with other vampires about this?" Cecil asked.

"You mean the cabal?" Carlos had dutifully mailed a registration form and check to the county seat, and otherwise was taking even more care to conceal and encrypt his research. His lab hadn't been raided again, at least. "They didn't exactly seem interested in friendly collaboration."

"How about the other vampires in town? You're not the only citizen who's been bitten."

"I know," Carlos said. "There's the blood bank employees."

"I was thinking Club the Impaler," Cecil said. "You know, that discotheque down on Ouroboros?"

Carlos did not know it, and was momentarily distracted by Cecil saying 'discotheque' with a straight face. "It's where most of the local vampires hang out," Cecil explained. "Maybe some of them have the same problem with blood, and could give you advice? I'm sure they'd be happy to help out; everyone there is very friendly."

"And you know this how?" Carlos asked, mostly for the chance to make Cecil blush and mumble things like _misspent youth_.

Given how accommodating Cecil was being with his lousy moods, Carlos didn't have much choice but to humor him. Besides, he wasn't having any success with compounds 18 through 21. So the next evening he drove over to Club the Impaler.

Carlos arrived just as the doors were opening. The sharp-toothed bouncer waved him past the crowd waiting in front, saving him from the young women in line who gazed raptly at his fangs, fanning themselves.

He left the club an hour later and went to Cecil's. "So how'd it go?" Cecil asked as he let Carlos in.

Carlos shuddered. "Have you ever had blood wine?"

Cecil wrinkled his nose. "Unfortunately, yes."

"It's vile. I didn't think cold congealing blood could be any more disgusting, but mixed with enough spirits to actually _ferment_ —"

"Here," Cecil said, going to his drinks cupboard and splashing a healthy dose of armagnac into a glass. "Get the taste out."

Carlos barely resisted the urge to swish the blessedly blood-free liquor like mouthwash. He settled for taking long sips instead, exhaling between them a heartfelt, "Thank you."

Cecil brought the bottle along as they moved to the couch. "How was it otherwise?"

"Not as bad as the wine," Carlos said, grimacing and taking another gulp of brandy. "But almost. They all wore black. And a lot of eyeliner. And they were all so young; I must have had at least ten years on the oldest person there."

"Likely it only appeared like you did," Cecil said. "Some of the regulars have been going there since the club was founded, over sixty years ago; they just were younger when they were bitten."

Carlos groaned. "So I'm old to have even become a vampire? That's not any better. It might be worse." Cecil helpfully refilled his glass in sympathy.

Sometime later that night, Carlos had relocated from the couch to the floor. The carpet was thick and comfy and less trouble to balance on. It was easier to stretch out his legs and sprawl, head tipped back against the couch cushions, admiring the slow sway of the lights overhead as he complained, "And none of 'em's heard of anything like my predimikent—perdicklemint—my _problem_. Everybody else _loves_ blood. Guess I'm just a really bad vampire..."

He tried to take a consoling drink, only his glass was empty. When he reached for the brandy to remedy that, the bottle tipped over before he could catch it. Fortunately there were only dregs left, not enough to spill on the rug. But the reaching tipped him over as well, the couch sneakily sliding out from behind his back.

Before he ended up on the floor, he butted up against a warm body, warm arms wrapping around him. Carlos blinked up at Cecil. "Hi," he said.

"Hi, Carlos," Cecil said, as warm as his arms.

"Have any more brandy?"

Cecil smiled down at him. "Maybe save some for another night?"

"Mm, maybe," Carlos lazily agreed. It had done its job, anyway; he couldn't remember the taste of...whatever he wasn't supposed to remember tasting. Something awful enough to deserve forgetting.

Though drinking to forget wasn't really his thing; they'd talked about this—"Cecil?"

"Carlos?" Cecil replied, tenderly. He shifted Carlos in his arms, so Carlos was propped against his shoulder, his nose brushing the soft bare skin of Cecil's neck. 

He breathed in, smelling static and purple and shadow and other things that shouldn't have scents at all. "Hmm," Carlos remarked, distracted. "I like how you smell."

"I like how you smell," Cecil said, combing his fingers through Carlos's hair. "I like you."

"I like you too," Carlos said, inhaling Cecil again, not just the impossible aromas but the warmth, too. He was so chilly all the time, even now with the brandy's heat and Cecil's arms around him.

"If you like me," Cecil said softly, "then why don't you taste me? Just a little nip," and he twisted so his neck met Carlos's lips, scraping the protruding canines.

"I shouldn't," Carlos mumbled, but he was feeling too loose and relaxed to pull back, and couldn't think of why he'd want to anyway. He really did like the scent on Cecil's skin. It might be as good under as well. He opened his mouth, letting the fragrant warmth flow over his tongue as he pressed his fangs a little deeper.

" _Yes_ ," Cecil crooned, low and encouraging. He arched his neck against Carlos's mouth invitingly, and maybe this wasn't such a bad idea after all. Or maybe Carlos just hadn't been this drunk since his undergrad years. Either way he was thirsty, and there wasn't any more brandy.

He bit down, and for a second it was as satisfying as the first bite of a perfectly ripe plum, his teeth breaking the tender skin, with the juice beneath surging—

Then it hit his tongue, hot and coppery and nauseating; and Cecil's breath caught in a suppressed yelp of pain.

Carlos shoved Cecil away and threw himself backwards, ending up sprawled on his side on his elbows. He stared blearily at Cecil, kneeling with his shirt unbuttoned and blood trickling down his bare chest from the two punctures in his neck. Cecil covered the wounds with one hand, reached out to Carlos with the other, asking worriedly, "Carlos—?"

"I—I'm going to be sick," Carlos said, and vomited up a mouthful of blood and a wasteful amount of Cecil's best brandy. The only reason it didn't ruin the rug was because Cecil quickly made a circling motion with his hand, muttering an incantation, and a small vortex opened up right under Carlos's mouth and caught his stomach's offering, before winking back out of existence.

Carlos stared down at the clean rug, dizzy from the vortex's rapid materialization and dematerialization, and the metallic reek of blood still in the air. "Okay," he said, "and now I'm going to pass out," which he promptly did.


	2. Chapter 2

Carlos awoke in Cecil's bed at sunset, with his head pounding from more than the final daylight seeping through the curtains. The radio was on but turned sympathetically low, and Cecil's voice was calm even for him, soothing as he intoned _, "Even as we scorn the young for rashly following their hearts, who of us, child or adult, sinner or saint, killer or resurrectionist, has not done a foolish thing out of love?"_

When Carlos managed to pry up his head, he saw on the bedstand a glass of water along with a bottle of aspirin, thoughtfully placed next to his phone. He took three pills with the water, then picked up the phone. It buzzed the moment his fingers touched it, with a text from Cecil, _how's your head?_ /;⩋;\

 _Sore_ , Carlos texted back, once his eyes adjusted to the phone's agonizing glare.

The phone buzzed, _sorry_ ≋≋(D8)

After taking a moment to parse the unhappy octopus emoticon, Carlos tapped out, _It wasn't your fault_ , only to stop before hitting send. It occurred to him that as many times as Cecil had topped off his brandy glass last night, he didn't recall returning the favor for Cecil. In fact he didn't recall Cecil having a glass at all.

Carlos's head was still aching when Cecil got home, which lent a certain emphasis to his glower. Cecil, to his credit, didn't so much as smile at his fangs, just said awkwardly, "Hi, Carlos...umm. So. That conversation we had a while back, about how helping someone drink to forget when they haven't themselves decided to do so, isn't considered something a good boyfriend would do, outside of Night Vale? I suppose, theoretically, the same might be true under other circumstances...?"

Carlos ground his knuckles into his throbbing temples. "Circumstances such as plying your boyfriend with your best liquor to talk him into _biting_ you?"

Cecil cringed. "Maybe?"

"Theoretically, that would be a really terrible thing for a boyfriend to do," Carlos said. He carefully pushed back Cecil's collar to examine the bandage on his neck. "Though not as terrible as actually biting your boyfriend, who was only trying to help—it couldn't be as bad as that."

Cecil's face appeared to be trying to invent an entirely new expression that split the difference between mortification, mortal agony, and abject apology. "But it wasn't bad! It hardly hurt, and I _wanted_ you to do it—"

"Cecil, I could've seriously injured you! Or turned you into a vampire, or—"

"Not without filling out the proper paperwork," Cecil said. "I just thought if you got a proper feeding, and realized what you were missing—"

"I know exactly what I'm missing, and I don't miss it! That's the _problem_!" Carlos winced as his own yell made the pain in his skull spike.

Cecil made an upset sound, put his hands to Carlos's head and massaged gently. Against Carlos's undead skin his palms were so warm as to be hot, easing the ache. Carlos shut his eyes, leaning into his touch, as Cecil murmured, "I'm so sorry, dear Carlos. I just don't like seeing you like this."

"I don't care for it myself," Carlos admitted. "But the alternative.... I've been reviewing the literature"—literally, as it turned out there were precious few nonfiction texts on vampires. The cabals were as zealous as Night Vale's City Council when it came to censoring and spreading misinformation. Carlos supposed it made sense that vampires would want to conceal their existence; romantic as vampires might be in theory, in practice most humans were less than accepting of blood-drinking parasites. There was, essentially, little difference between a vampire and a tick or flea; and the cabals wouldn't want humans to go and invent undead repellant.

Their caution didn't make Carlos's research any easier, though. He'd been reduced to combing through genre fiction, tallying common points in hopes that some might be accurate depictions. "I think I might have figured out what my problem is."

"Oh?"

"Which doesn't mean I know what to do about it," Carlos warned, checking Cecil's too-hopeful tone. "But taking into account the feedings I observed at the club last night, I suspect that despite the ostensible resemblance to ingestion, blood drinking isn't about flavor or appetite at all, for most vampires. It's possible that the urge to drink blood isn't an aspect of the digestive system, but rather the libido. Vampires don't procreate sexually; instead their superfluous sexual desires are repurposed to desiring biting and feeding. Bloodlust isn't a figure of speech with us. But if a vampire's sex drive isn't active enough to overcome their natural aversion to drinking blood..."

Cecil's hands on his temples stilled. "So you don't like drinking blood as a vampire because you didn't like sex as a human?"

"That's the hypothesis."

"So if you had—if we'd had sex, if you liked it with me...maybe you'd like feeding from me now?"

"Hey," Carlos said, opening his eyes at the distress in Cecil's voice. "This doesn't have anything to do with you. I was asexual long before we met; it's not like you turned me off of sex, or that you were denying me anything I wanted. Besides, it's only a hypothesis."

"A very clever hypothesis," Cecil said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

"Coming up with a sensible-sounding explanation is the easy part; proving it is the challenge. Until a hypothesis is formally tested, it's no better than a guess. And it's hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from a single data point."

"How could you prove it, then?"

"If I could interview another asexual vampire, that could corroborate it," Carlos said. "But with only a dozen or so vampires in Night Vale, the odds are against finding any here. And I'm not sure how to contact anyone outside of town without attracting the attention of the cabals."

"I'm asexual, aren't I?" Cecil said. "Or an equivalent thereof—that's what you've told me before."

"Yes, but obviously you're not a—"

"So if I were bitten, I could be another data point for you."

"—No," Carlos said. "Cecil, that's—"

"Would it help your research?

"Probably not, not enough; and even if it did, believe me, you don't want this!"

"That's hardly fair." Cecil crossed his arms. "That I can't tell you that you want to drink blood; but you can tell me that I don't want to be a vampire."

"That's—" Carlos opened his mouth, closed it again. Finally he said, "You're right. I'm sorry. Do you? Want to become a vampire?"

"I actually was offered, years ago," Cecil said. "At the time I wasn't interested; I wanted to be the community radio host, and most of the scheduled time slots are diurnal. But if it was for you...we could be undead together?"

"Not if I find a cure," Carlos said. "And if I can't—Cecil, if this hypothesis is right, and feeding proves to be as difficult for you as it is for me—even if you're willing, I don't want you to become like this. I don't want this for you."

Cecil cupped Carlos's face in his hands, gazed into his eyes with that penetrating, painfully raw sincerity which Carlos had yet to determine was a Night Vale relationship thing, or a Cecil thing. "But I don't want this for you," Cecil said. "I want to help."

"I know," Carlos said, and then because that look always made him feel inadequately inexpressive, blurted out, "But misery doesn't love company when it's someone you care about being miserable. I couldn't stand to see you suffering with me, for my sake—"

Unhappiness darkened Cecil's exposed gaze. "You said you _weren't_ suffering."

"—I'm not, I'm just...it's not easy, all right? But it'd be worse if you were going through it, too. I couldn't take something happening to you because of me. Promise me you won't let _anything_ bite you. At least not unless I find a cure." He put his own hands to Cecil's face, tried to match him open gaze to open gaze. "Please, Cecil?"

Cecil studied him for a long moment, and finally sighed. "I promise.

Carlos sighed, too, with relief. "That means me, too, you know—you can't allow me to bite you again. However drunk I am."

"I know," Cecil said, with a Night Vale citizen's comprehensive grasp of rules and their exceptions. "I won't."

"Thank you. And I forgive you for last night." Carlos pulled Cecil in to kiss him, carefully through the fangs, then asked, "Speaking of that—was I seeing things, or did you really summon a transdimensional vortex for me to throw up into?"

"Old college trick," Cecil said. "Don't worry, it's legal in alcohol-related incidents. The City Council drinks far too much to not have that exception on the books."

" _Please_ tell me you'd have a designated vortex-creator and never made those while intoxicated yourself."

"Well, it's not advised, but you know what college is like," Cecil said. "It's fine, I still have all my limbs, right?"

Carlos shook his head and kissed him again, making a mental note to explore transdimensional vortex manipulation, after he'd cracked the vampire cure.

 

* * *

 

That project was proving to be a challenge, however. Test compounds 22 through 31 of the cure were also failures; no mouse survived the transition back to mortality for more than a couple days. Carlos smashed one test tube and only barely stopped himself from sweeping the rest onto the floor in a fit of dramatic pique. He half-wished the cabal would raid again; it would be an excuse for his lack of progress.

He was sure he was missing something, a key aspect of vampiric nature. He'd catalogued any number of individual traits, from the literature and his own experiences. He had investigated the limits of his anti-reflectory properties, and started developing a suit to render the wearer invisible to cameras, which wasn't a cure but might fund more research. He knew from his mandatory Big Rico meals that he now had a mild allergic reaction to garlic, and raw iron against his skin caused a rash; he experimented with both to see if either might hold the key to reversing the condition. But none of it came to anything. 

Every three days one of his scheduled donors came to the lab. Carlos made himself drink, but spoonfuls of blood didn't get any easier to choke down. He wasn't sleeping any better, and the headaches were more frequent; even bright fluorescents could provoke them now. He kept the lights in the lab turned low and started wearing sunglasses when he went out at night.

If he had to endure a putative eternity like this...increasingly, he found himself contemplating the consequences of stopping drinking blood altogether. Or else testing one of the compounds on himself—the test mice hadn't survived any; but perhaps it would work differently on human anatomy...

To stave off such thoughts, Carlos began staying at the lab into morning, locking himself into the windowless back storage room and working through the daylight-induced migraines. When it got too much he crashed on a cot, until the alarm on his phone set for sundown woke him up to get back to the useless experiments. 

For all Cecil's appreciation of science, eventually even he had enough. One evening after his show ended, he called Carlos, several times, until Carlos finally noticed his buzzing phone and answered. "Cecil, sorry, but—"

 _"It's been a week; dinner's at my place,"_ Cecil said. _"Now,"_ and he hung up.

They'd made a deal a while back that Carlos wasn't allowed to skip more than a week's worth of meals with his boyfriend, no matter how involving a scientific experiment might become. Cecil didn't usually invoke it. He also didn't hang up on Carlos as a rule; and Carlos's frustration at the interruption, mixed with his guilt that it had been necessary, was a potent enough combination to propel him out of the laboratory. It wasn't like he was getting anything done there anyway.

Cecil's cooking skills were limited, but he was better than the average Night Vale citizen at convincing water to boil, so rice or soy noodles were one of his standbys. Tonight he had made up imitation spaghetti and sauce from a jar. After pointing Carlos to his seat, Cecil served up a bowl of pasta, dumped the entire saucepan over it and set it down in front of him.

Carlos looked at the distinctly crimson tinge to the marinara, a more iron-rich red than was usual for tomatoes. Then he looked at Cecil, noting his pallor, and the bandaid on his arm. "How much blood is in this?"

"More than a teaspoon," Cecil said, forthright. "Don't worry, it's sanitary; I used a needle." He sat down before his own bowl opposite Carlos, said, "It's your third day, isn't it? Besides, I cooked for you; you have to try it."

Carlos sighed, forked up a single strand of red-coated pasta and forced it into his mouth. The acidic tomato and spices cut the worst of the metallic aftertaste; it wasn't appetizing, but it didn't make his gorge rise too sharply.

Then he bit down on the noodle, and his eyes went wide. Swallowing so fast he hardly noticed the blood going down, he jumped up, grabbed Cecil, fork still in hand, and hauled him over to the refrigerator. Thus out of the hearing of the sheriff's secret police, he hissed, "Cecil, is that semolina spaghetti?"

"Yes," Cecil said.

" _Wheat_ semolina?"

"Yes," Cecil said, folding his arms and glaring at Carlos defiantly. "And if you don't eat all of it, then I'm going to dump the leftovers into the compost bin."

The city compost bins, every one of which was collected weekly and brought past the secret police dogs to detect illegal wheat and wheat byproducts. "Cecil—"

"You said you didn't want anything to happen to me because of you. So."

"This—this is extortion!"

"Yes, it is," Cecil said. "Which I'm guessing is something else a good boyfriend shouldn't do outside Night Vale; but we're in Night Vale. And anyway I don't care if I'm a good boyfriend or a bad boyfriend or if you hate me or you break up with me—as long as you feed yourself right."

"Cecil..."

"...Only please don't break up with me," Cecil added, staring down at the linoleum with a death-grip on his fork.

Carlos inhaled a deep breath, let it go. "I'm not going to break up with you," he said. "And I'm not going to let you get arrested either." He went back to the table, reluctantly took another bite of spaghetti. 

It took him an hour and three glasses of water, but he managed to clean his plate. Cecil looked pleased and hopeful, but Carlos wasn't about to encourage him to pull this stunt again. Agreement fulfilled, he left for the lab while Cecil was clearing the table, without saying good night.

Though Carlos had to admit, once his stomach settled, he felt all right. Better than all right, really—his head didn't ache at all, and his vision seemed clearer, colors more vivid. He practically bounded out of his car, and accidentally slammed the lab's door opening it; he cracked a beaker for the first time since the week he had been bitten, when he was still adjusting to a vampire's strength.

And when Carlos sat down before his computer, his mind was even sharper than his eyes, focused and inspired. He read through a dozen reports in an hour and remembered all their details without referring back. When he went to write up notes his fingers flew so fast over the keyboard that the laptop's screen flickered.

By dawn he had typed up nearly a hundred pages of speculation and calculation, and outlines for experiments to test everything from vampiric reflexes to the dimensional vortexes to the clocks. His shoulders didn't so much as twinge, nor his eyes ache for all the hours spent before a computer screen.

He went to back to his place to sleep, satisfied and triumphant, and drifted off as soon as his head hit the pillow. Come sunset he awoke from a deep, dreamless sleep, rested and alert.

Instead of going to the lab, Carlos drove over to Cecil's, stopping for groceries along the way. He was taking dinner out of the oven when Cecil arrived home after his show.

Cecil was astonished but delighted to find Carlos in his kitchen. "You cooked! Is that salmon? Blood is traditionally paired with red meat, but—"

"No blood," Carlos said, stopping Cecil from rolling up his sleeve. "This is for you—as an apology for all the meals I've missed lately, and a thank you. Your, um, donation, did make a difference."

Cecil smiled. "I hoped it would. You're looking better."

"I feel better than I have in a while," Carlos confessed. "And I got so much done yesterday—if I can be as productive today I might figure out the cure yet!"

That proved a little optimistic. For one, some experiments couldn't be rushed, no matter how quickly he devised them. And Carlos's own performance didn't quite measure up to the previous night's, his focus not so laser-sharp. He worked diligently, but by the end of the night he was exhausted, and had few positive results to show for it. Come sunrise he retreated to the lab's backroom to try to solve a few more equations, only to end up falling asleep on the cot with his laptop as an uncomfortable pillow.

He awoke the next evening with his neck stiff and a trail of dried drool on his laptop's casing. He cleaned up in the emergency shower, turning the water as hot as it would go to try to boil away the soreness in his shoulders, and was just slipping on a fresh lab coat when Cecil arrived at the lab.

He had a paper bag with a logo Carlos didn't recognize and made his eyes cross to try to read, though under the eldritch symbol the slogan was written in the regular Latin alphabet, _The best Chicago-style hotdogs this side of the Nevernever!_

Carlos regarded with suspicion the loaded foot-longs Cecil took out of the bag. "Are those on wheat buns, by any chance?"

"Yes," Cecil said, setting the cardboard cartons down on the lab counter and taking a capped hypodermic out of his pocket. "Now look away; you won't find this part appetizing to watch."

"Cecil, it hasn't even been three days, I don't need—"

"Consider it a scientific _experiment_ ," Cecil said, eyes gleaming with the excitement of employing that meaningful word. "To see if you can still consume blood even when you're not half-starved, if it's properly presented." He set the needle to his arm. "Now, turn around, please, Carlos?"

Carlos sighed and turned back to his laptop. "If it's an experiment, then only a small sample is needed—and I haven't had a good hotdog with the works in ages, please don't ruin it?"

"I won't," Cecil said, and indeed the frankfurter he presented to Carlos looked no different from his own; between the ketchup and red pepper relish and tomatoes, the blood's extra red was hard to discern, and even its aftertaste was muted. Or maybe Carlos was adjusting to that coppery tang. And Cecil looked as proud when Carlos finished his hotdog as if he'd made it himself, rather than just provided an additional topping.

After eating, Carlos got to work. He felt energized, motivated, as if he'd had a nap, an espresso, and a full-body massage. Statistical analyses flew by; mental arithmetic hadn't come so easily since his best days in grad school, saving him time calculating standard deviations.

Cecil stayed for a little while to watch Carlos do science, but bored sooner than usual, excusing himself with a yawn. Carlos, engrossed in data correlation, accepted his good night kiss perfunctorily, continuing to read his laptop screen over Cecil's shoulder.

By pre-dawn, he had lost count of the number of charts he had generated, but was feeling a twinge of guilt. After all, it was thanks to Cecil that he was able to work so effectively. That experiment was an unmitigated success; there were definite advantages to nutrition. As a scientist, Carlos could hardly ignore clear evidence, regardless of his personal tastes.

He had just enough time before sunrise to drive over to Cecil's apartment. Cecil was sound asleep, not stirring even when Carlos burrowed under the covers with him, though usually Cecil would instinctively roll toward him. Carlos curled up next to him instead. For the first time in a while Cecil wasn't hot to Carlos's touch, his skin pleasantly cool under Carlos's hands as he drifted off to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Carlos was cold again when he woke at sunset, alone in bed with Cecil gone to work. He listened to the radio on the drive to the lab, repressing a smile at Cecil's tone. Even when warning about the hazards of shape-shifter identity theft, there was an underlying satisfaction to his voice that made Carlos suspect he had been a topic earlier in the show.

Though he frowned when the traffic report was interrupted by Cecil yawning. He apologized hastily and put on the weather, but it was an unusual lapse. 

Carlos texted him to suggest mandatory slices at Big Rico's after the show. But Cecil wrote back, _Sorry, dear Carlos, tomorrow? Need to compel clogs out of sink drains 2nite._

 _OK, see you tomorrow_ , Carlos texted back, and Cecil replied, _good luck sciencing!_ :)

The emoticon was atypically intelligible, but nothing otherwise was amiss. Yet Carlos found himself interrupting his work to take out his phone, rereading the exchange, as if it held some hidden but crucial meaning. 

Finally he gave up and texted, _How are the sinks going?_ Then sat and waited for a reply. And waited, and waited, until he at last concluded that Cecil either had been dragged down a drain—though there had been no urgent plumbing alerts of late—or else gone to bed, though it wasn't even nine.

Carlos tapped the phone against the lab table, debating whether he should check the actinometer for elevated levels of airborne paranoia. Then he queued up his most recent recordings of Cecil's show.

He hadn't taken the time to listen to the broadcasts of the last few days. Reviewing them now, he'd missed little of note, on the admittedly unique Night Vale scale of noteworthiness. After sitting through flying saucer identification tips and police bulletins on the fines for flaunting the laws of thermodynamics, Carlos was on the verge of sampling the air supply when Cecil's recorded voice faltered, stuttered like a stalled engine. He coughed to clear his throat, came back, _"My apologies, listeners, I'm feeling a bit under the weather, though there's no significant stormhead in the booth at the moment..."_

A chill went down Carlos's spine that had nothing to do with his undead metabolism. He checked the date of the recording—the day after their spaghetti dinner. 

Two datapoints did not a conclusion make. But Carlos hadn't survived this long in Night Vale—whatever his species—by ignoring his scientific instincts. He called up all data he had, the vampire literature, the biologists' observations of their fanged mice—he'd pored over all of it enough to have it half-memorized; but his focus now was not on potential cures.

By the time his phone chimed alert of the hour before dawn, Carlos had more conclusions than he'd wanted to find. He felt ill, a different kind of queasiness than the nausea of blood.

He left the lab, drove to Cecil's. The sky was still dark but the moon was nearly full, higher than it should be so late at night; it made Carlos's head throb. Anxious to escape that painful glow, he clumsily banged the front door; but when he reached the bedroom Cecil was still as deeply asleep as he had been the night before.

Figuratively dead to the world, and Carlos shuddered, standing over him. The curtains were drawn, blocking out the moonlight; but his predator's eyes had no trouble discerning his boyfriend in the dark. Cecil had twisted out from under the covers, his loose t-shirt baring his neck and the curve of his shoulder. Paler divots marred that smooth skin, the marks of Carlos's fangs, now almost healed.

And underneath the faint scars, Carlos could see the jump of his pulse, a flutter just barely visible, and yet his gaze locked onto it, entranced.

Carlos had barely tasted a drop of his blood then. Cecil had been willing to give far more. It had been hot and coppery and disgusting, but if Carlos managed to choke it down...a swallow or two now would be enough to dispel his moon-induced headache, wash the ache of fatigue from his limbs and clear his mind. Direct from the vein it might be even more potent; Carlos could scarcely imagine what inspiration it might impart.

He should experiment, for science. Find out how much more he was capable of, when he fed like a proper vampire...

Carlos jerked back so abruptly he almost fell over, put his hands behind his back as he cried, "Cecil—Cecil! Wake up!"

"Mmph—whah—Carlos?" Cecil's eyes blinked open, his voice sharpening in response to Carlos's alarm. "What's wrong?"

"I was thinking about _biting_ you," Carlos gasped.

"Really? Do you want to?" Cecil offered, sitting up in bed and pulling down his t-shirt's collar, to better present his neck.

Carlos didn't realize how fast he retreated until his back hit the bedroom wall. "No—no, I'm not, I don't—you promised not to let me—!"

"I did, yes," Cecil said, meeting Carlos's gaze without trouble despite the darkness. "But we could make an exception, if you'd like to try. Otherwise I'll go get a needle—"

"No!" Carlos said, pressing back as far as he could. Cecil's apartment had occasional spots of incorporeality, but the wall behind him was inopportunely solid now. "I don't want any of it!"

Cecil's face fell. "I can make you tea to go along with it? Though I thought that perhaps by now my blood wouldn't be quite so repulsive to you..."

"—It's not," Carlos said.

"It isn't?"

Carlos put his hands over his eyes, so he wouldn't have to see Cecil looking at him so hopefully. "It's—it's not repulsive," he stammered. "It never was. It wasn't _delicious_ , but of all the samples I've tried, yours is the least objectionable."

"But you said it wasn't...Carlos? You... _lied_ to me?" 

"I didn't lie," Carlos said into his hands. "Your blood didn't fall on that part of the scale; I just neglected to say where it did place."

"Why?" Cecil didn't sound upset or angry, just baffled. "Why didn't you want to feed from me, if you could stand the taste?"

"Because the taste didn't matter; I don't want to drink your blood! Exchanging bodily fluids has never been part of our relationship..."

"Relationships can change," Cecil said steadily.

Carlos lowered his hands to meet his eyes, studying his expression. "Cecil, do you actually like it? You've asked me to bite you, but was that because you wanted me to feed, or did you enjoy it? Honestly?"

Cecil grimaced. "It...hurt," he admitted. "I regret being one of the unlucky minority with pain receptors. But it's all right if it's you, dear Carlos. If you can get used to drinking blood, then I can get used to you feeding on me."

"Except I don't want to get used to it," Carlos said.

"So you misled me, on purpose—"

"Misleading—you're one to talk about _misleading_ ," Carlos snapped. "Feeding me your blood, coercing me into drinking it—and you've never once mentioned the cost!"

"The cost?" Cecil's brow furrowed in confusion.

"How much have you slept, the last few nights, since you've been giving me your blood? Twelve hours? Fourteen? And you're still nearly dozing off on the air. Blood loss can tire you, but not like that, not such small quantities as you've been giving me."

"Well, no," Cecil said. "Sacrifice is more draining than simple loss; that's basic science, isn't it?"

" _What_ is?"

Cecil frowned. "Energy can't be created, only transferred—surely you know that principle? And life is, arguably, the greatest energy of all. So undead individuals, such as your beautiful self, need to get life from somewhere, having lost their own. The blood is simply the medium of transference, from a living being to your body."

"From the living—are you saying that you've been feeding me your own _life_!?"

"Yes, obviously—Carlos?" Cecil's voice sounded distressed, and also strangely remote, as if coming from down a long tunnel. Darkness pressed around Carlos's vision, that even his vampire eyes couldn't penetrate. "Carlos, oh dear—"

A light touch fell on Carlos's shoulder. Carlos flinched, as if that warm hand were a burning brand, snapping the world back into focus. Cecil pulled back his hand, standing motionless as Carlos backed away as far as he could, putting the bed between them. Only Cecil's gaze followed him, looking at Carlos helplessly across the bedroom. "Did you not understand after all? I didn't realize, I assumed that as a scientist, you knew basic necromantic principles."

"I thought undead was an _expression_ ," Carlos said. "A figure of speech, not that I was literally—that I—so I _died_ , when that bat bit me?"

Even across the room, Carlos saw the shiver go through Cecil. "In a...manner of speaking," Cecil said reluctantly. "Vampires prefer to say reborn, or maybe awakened is the preferred term nowadays..."

"I thought it was a condition—a disease, an infection—I thought I could find a cure! But you can't cure _mortality_!"

"Well, I can't," Cecil said, "but I'm not a scientist. I'm sure if you try—"

"Try to solve death?!" His cures had been a success after all, effectively reversing the vampirism. The exposed mice died because they were already dead; they had simply been living on borrowed time. Borrowed blood. Carlos clutched his hair until it pulled tears from his eyes. "This isn't something science can solve—at least not the science I've studied. Which doesn't include necromancy."

"You'll just have to study it, then," Cecil said, all reassuring confidence. "You have plenty of time, as long as you feed properly."

" _Feed_." Carlos shuddered. "You mean, steal life for myself."

"That's a rude way to characterize a gift," Cecil said, in the mildly chastising tone of his editorials. "You're not stealing anything from me; I'm perfectly happy to—"

"To what? To die for me?" Carlos locked gazes with Cecil across the bed. In his night vision he could see clearly the peaked, pinched lines of Cecil's face, the gray under his complexion that was more than the washed-out colors of darkness. 

He recognized that exhaustion, all too well—he hadn't been able to see it in a mirror himself; but he'd felt it in his bones, weighing down his limbs.

"How long does a vampire's food supply usually live?" Carlos demanded. "Because the mice in the lab, they kill their prey within a couple of nights. I've checked the data. The longest-lived was less than a week. I assumed it was death from blood loss, but if it's due to loss of _life_...mice have shorter lifespans than humans; a week for a mouse is equivalent to perhaps ten months of a human's life. How long could you survive my feeding on you, Cecil?"

"More than ten months, I believe," Cecil said. "It's an individual thing, but I know you'd be careful, and I'm reasonably healthy. I'm pretty sure I could last a year at least. Maybe two."

"A year—a _year_!" If Carlos yanked his hair any harder he might rip a few hanks out of his scalp. He didn't much care. "A year before I _killed_ you—!"

"You wouldn't, if you found a cure first," Cecil said. "And otherwise..." He shrugged with a casualness that wasn't the least assumed, smiling at Carlos affectionately. "There are countless worse ways to die, than giving your life to someone you love. Most people can only wish their ends to be so lucky."

"Lucky...!" Carlos slid down to the floor, shoulders pressed back against the wall, putting his head against his knees. He thought of the humans at the dance club, the ones dancing closest to the vampires—those pale, frail souls, some hardly able to stand on their own, supported by their lovers' hungry embraces. No wonder there were only a dozen vampires in Night Vale; the city could only support so many sacrifice pools. "If vampires are so dangerous, why doesn't the secret police take them all out—take all of _us_ out?"

"The county's vampire cabal has an arrangement with the City Council," Cecil said. "But only a limited population is allowed in town at a time. Even your application was just barely approved. Since it was clearly an accident, and you were in pursuit of science at the time, you received special dispensation from the Council."

"Uncommonly generous of them," Carlos muttered.

Cecil coughed. "I may have called in a favor or two. Otherwise you would've been driven out of the city limits with garlic and holy symbols."

"Those are effective against vampires?" Carlos looked up at Cecil, curiosity momentarily overriding shame. The garlic he knew about, but he hadn't noticed any trouble walking past churches.

"They're effective if the holy symbol in question is a flamethrower," Cecil said. "From the Order of the Incendiary Ignitionists; it's a lesser-known denomination."

"You shouldn't have used up your favors," Carlos said. "You should've let me leave—"

"Then you wouldn't have fed on anybody's blood, and would've starved your first week," Cecil said. "A vampire can always die again."

"Yes!" Carlos said. "And I should've—"

" _No_ ," Cecil said, not loudly, but precisely, dangerously sure: the Voice of Night Vale, even if not over the radio. "You should not have."

"But I don't want to live—to _exist_ , as a lethal parasitoid! I don't want to survive at the expense of anyone's life!"

"Not _anyone's_ ," Cecil said, his tone darkening to something like anger. " _Mine_."

Carlos stared at him, realization striking like lightning, painfully bright. Cecil's blood—Cecil's life, given freely, gladly sacrificed; and Carlos had refused it, had claimed it repulsed him. But Cecil kept offering, all the same.

Carlos swallowed, then climbed to his feet to face Cecil, still keeping space between them. "I don't want your life," he said. "I don't want any of this—I don't want _this_."

"This?"

Carlos gestured widely, the sweep of his arm encompassing the bed, the room, the apartment. Himself and Cecil both. "What we had, whatever it was," he said. "You said relationships can change; but people can, too. I can—I _have_ changed. And who I am now, what I am now—this isn't what I want anymore."

Cecil froze. If he were still breathing, Carlos couldn't see it. At last he asked, very quietly, "What are you saying, Carlos?"

"I don't know," Carlos said. "I don't know how to say it that you'll understand it. You can't understand; you're not what I am now. And I don't want you to be bitten; it wouldn't make a difference anyway. But I don't want this, either. I can't do this, Cecil. Not now, not anymore."

He wasn't looking at Cecil's face, but Cecil's voice was stricken, raw. "Carlos, please, you don't have to—I won't get bitten, I swear—but I'll—"

"It's too late," Carlos said, turning towards the door. "It's been too late since I came out of that cave. It just took me this long to notice."

Cecil held out his hand beseechingly, but when Carlos brushed past he let his arm fall back to his side. Carlos didn't turn back, even when Cecil said his name, his voice breaking down the middle, cracking it in two.

At the apartment's entryway Carlos dropped his spare key into the bowl balanced on the never-used umbrella stand, and let himself out, closing the door behind him. The lock clicked shut as he released the handle, soft and final.

The sky was light, glowing with pre-dawn. By the time Carlos got back to his place, the sun was nearly above the horizon. He cupped his hands over his eyes as he hurried from the curb to his door, but his head was pounding fit to crack his skull by the time he made it inside to the shelter of his living room's black-out curtains.

For a moment he stood at the doorway to the kitchen. In his refrigerator was a small stoppered bottle of compound 17, an estimated dose for one human. One former human. He'd brought it back from the lab weeks ago. He could drink it now and walk outside. Feel the heat of sunlight on his face, of blood under his skin. It would almost be worth it, however long it lasted.

Carlos didn't go into the kitchen. He didn't go to the bedroom, either; he just lay down on the futon, put his arms over his aching head and listened to the silence where his heart once used to beat.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Agh this story was as hard on me as on Cecil and Carlos...I rewrote this chapter three times. In the end I'm reasonably satisfied with it myself, but apologies if it wasn't what you were hoping for...

Carlos awoke the next evening to seven voicemails, thirteen emails, and forty-two text messages on his phone. They were all from Cecil. The subjects of the emails were increasingly creative variations on _please,_ and later in the day, _I'm sorry_.

He deleted everything with opening any.

When he started his car, the radio came on. Cecil's voice was solid and certain as ever, as he said, _"And before we end for the night, a plea from your community radio: if anybody has any more information on curing vampirism, you know my email address. If you don't know it, imagine what it must be. You know me pretty well, listeners; I'm sure you'll get it right. Good night, Night Vale—"_

Carlos slapped the console, silencing the sign-off.

The first thing he did upon getting to the lab was to unplug the radio. The second was to contact the blood donor due later in the evening, canceling that appointment and all future scheduled.

He was half-expecting Cecil to come to the lab, but though his show was over, he never appeared. Carlos left his phone off, though its silence was nearly as distracting; throughout the night he kept automatically checking it, remembering only after he saw the dark screen why he hadn't received any good-night text from Cecil. 

The next night, someone rapped on the lab's front door less than ten minutes after he arrived. Carlos frowned. None of the other scientists would knock; but Cecil knew to let himself in if the light was on.

With trepidation he answered the door. It wasn't Cecil on the stoop, however, but a secret police officer. "Yes?" Carlos said irritably. "Shouldn't you be sneaking in through the air ducts?"

"I'm not here on an investigation, sir," the officer said. "I've come to donate," and she pushed up her black sleeve, baring her arm.

"Sorry, that's canceled. Besides, you weren't due here for another week," Carlos told her.

The officer blinked behind her balaclava. "You didn't hear about the schedule change?"

"What change?" Carlos asked, as one of the Big Rico's cooks, still in apron and red shirt, came hurrying around the block, asking, "Just got on break; I'm not too late to donate, am I?"

"Look, there's been some mistake," Carlos began. "I'm not accepting donations now—"

"Really?" the police officer said. "It just said on the radio that you'd be taking donations every night this week."

"'Go to Carlos's lab and give blood' was the only thing on the community calendar, actually," the waiter said. "Do you have needles, or is it bring your own? I can go pick up a pack at the Ralph's..."

As Carlos watched in dismay, three more cars pulled up and parked behind the secret cruiser. Occasionally he forgot just how much influence his boyfriend wielded in the community.

 _Ex-boyfriend_ , Carlos reminded himself.

Though perhaps Cecil hadn't realized yet that it was really over. Or else he'd realized but was employing his much-practiced aptitude for denial. 

Carlos cleared his throat, announced, "Thank you all for coming, but I won't be accepting any more donations, regardless of what you hear on the radio. I'm, um, on a diet. Please just take your blood and go home." He retreated back into the lab, locking the door behind him.

There were knocks on the door periodically throughout the night. He stopped answering after he turned away the third eager donor. Maybe Cecil did realize, and this was his vengeance, that Carlos would never again work in peace.

He could call Cecil and ask him to rescind the calendar on tomorrow's show. He could call Cecil and berate him for this stunt.

He could call Cecil and...

Instead Carlos emailed all his volunteer donors, suspending the schedule, and explaining the consequences of the blood giving, as best he understood them. He also printed out a copy of the explanation and taped it to the lab's front door. Such belated disclosure was barely ethical, but it was the best he could do.

The night after that, Carlos woke up to find his color vision gone. He navigated his black and white world to the lab, where he found a veritable crowd gathered outside the door.

Carlos waved his arms to get their attention. "What are you doing here? Didn't any of you get my email?"

"Yes, but the radio—" began Tak Wallaby.

"Forget the radio!" Carlos shouted. Dozens of gray monochrome faces gaped at him in scandalized shock. Carlos barreled on regardless. His head was pounding; he didn't have the patience for this. "Did Cecil tell you that giving blood to me is sacrificing some of your _life_?"

"—Yes, he was quite clear about that," chimed in a woman further back in line. Carlos vaguely recognized her face, but couldn't recall from where; he didn't think she was on the donor list at all. "Though isn't it obvious? It's blood, after all. And just a single offering, at that."

"There may be delayed effects from even one donation," Carlos said. "I have no research on the long-term consequences; they could be severe."

"As dangerous as picnicking in Radon Canyon?" inquired Tak.

"Possibly even worse than that level of radiation exposure," Carlos said. "I can't say—"

"As dangerous as rolling blackouts?" called Hannah Gutierrez.

"More physical than metaphysical risk—"

"As dangerous as... _Valentine's Day_?" muttered Jeremy Godfrey, to the gasps of those around him.

"...Perhaps not _that_ bad," Carlos admitted, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief. "But that's the point, we don't know for sure. We're talking about your life itself—"

"Exactly!" the vaguely familiar woman said. "My life, which I owe you anyway. So..." and she took out of her handbag a formidable knife, a ceremonial dagger to tell by the bloodstone embedded in the hilt. Without hesitation and before Carlos could stop her, she drew the razor-sharp blade across her palm.

"What are you doing?!" Carlos cried, leaping forward to press his hands over her wounded one, as blood welled from the cut. "This isn't how you donate blood, and anyway you don't owe me a thing—"

The woman shook her head, serene in spite of the bloody dagger in her clenched fist. "Don't you remember? Last year, I turned into one of those buzzing shadow creatures, right in front of you and Cecil when you were driving back from your date. The only reason I have blood to offer now, rather than existing as a malevolent hole in reality, is because of your experiments. You restored my life as a human, so it's only right to return the debt. Hopefully before it impacts my credit rating."

"Besides," Tak chimed in, "the radio said all donations were tax-deductible."

Carlos looked at him, at the woman with the knife whose name he didn't even know; at all the Night Vale citizens around him, expectant and generous. Shame mixed with the frustration in his gut, blazing like sodium in hydrochloric acid, leaving salty gratitude caked in his throat.

"All right," he said. "If I accept a donation now, will you all leave me alone?" He raised his voice to be heard at the end of the line and beyond. Maybe loud enough to get back to Cecil, however that happened. Lifting his hand from the woman's, he brought it to his mouth and licked her blood off his fingers.

Its metallic stench turned his stomach, and the taste was worse; he'd forgotten how bad it could be. But he made himself swallow in front of everyone, and the woman smiled at him, an echo of Cecil's encouraging smile, coming back into color as the blood restored his vision. Forcing down bile, Carlos told her, "Thank you."

"You're welcome!" she chirped, holding her over hand over her cut palm. 

"I have a first aid kit, so come inside to clean that," Carlos told her. He looked around the crowd, sighed in resignation and said, "I'll email all of you a revised schedule, okay?"

"Sure thing!" they cheerfully agreed, and dispersed with the speed of citizens out past curfew.

Carlos gave his donor bandages and antiseptic, and observed her closely as she treated her cut. She was experienced with such knife-work; it wasn't quite deep enough to need stitches, already scabbing over. And she didn't otherwise seem any worse for her sacrifice; she was steady on her feet, and the bags under her eyes were no darker than any other denizen's of Night Vale. Once her hand was treated, she bade him good night, adding, "And give Cecil my regards."

"Um," Carlos said, "I'm not going to see him..."

"Working late again, huh? Tomorrow evening, then."

Carlos hesitated. "Has Cecil talked much about our...about our relationship, on his show, in the last few days?"

"Not really; he's been using his free airtime to talk about your undead situation. Which Management isn't too keen on, since that's hardly news anymore..."

How willing would all those generous citizens have been, if Cecil had told them they were broken up? That Carlos had broken up with him—broken his heart, after drinking his life's blood. What would they have done, if the radio had commanded them to come to Carlos's lab with garlic and flamethrowers, instead of clean hypodermics? Night Vale was well-accustomed to dealing with monsters.

But then, Cecil wouldn't do that, would he. Not to Carlos, whatever he had become. Not to his boyfriend.

_Ex-boyfriend._

After the donor departed, Carlos finally turned on his phone. He was expecting a flood of messages, distressed texts into the void. But there was nothing. Cecil hadn't tried to contact him once, since the first day.

Carlos didn't listen to the radio to hear the calendar, but no one turned up at the lab the next night, or the nights after that. Three days later he accepted a teaspoon of blood from the secret police officer, as scheduled. It tasted terrible. But his vision stayed in color.

He ate in the lab, when he remembered to eat at all, microwave burritos and instant ramen cups, but not enough to put on any weight. He paid the fines rather than go to Big Rico's, not knowing when Cecil might stop by for his mandatory slices.

However hot the desert days became, Carlos's dreams were cold, full of cold dead things. Come nightfall he would wake shivering, needlessly curled on one side of the bed. He stopped going home to sleep, using the cot in the lab instead. It was still chilly, but at least it didn't feel too big.

He'd slept by himself for most of his life. He would get used to being alone again.

He kept the radio at the lab unplugged. Sometimes while working he would look up from his flasks and spreadsheets at the mute speakers. He could almost hear Cecil's voice in that silence, subliminal, that presence which had been a part of Night Vale since he had arrived, had become part of the background noise of Carlos's universe. 

He didn't need the radio on; in his mind's ear Cecil was always broadcasting, making announcements and editorials, terrifying his listeners with one breath and comforting them the next.

He wouldn't tell them that Carlos had left him. But maybe they would notice that Cecil mentioned vampires less and less. That he no longer went on tangents about anniversaries and dinner plans, that he'd lost interest in science.

And sooner or later some new man would come to town—another time traveler, or a treasure hunter, or an artist. A man with a perfect nose and eyes like freshwater pearls, or maybe highway mirages. And Cecil would report his arrival, would see him smile and fall in love instantly.

It would be slow, would take time for the newcomer to realize what he was being offered. But finally he would understand, and when he did, how could he refuse? Perhaps he'd want sex, and Cecil would give it to him, happily, because that was what Cecil did when he was in love, gave without hesitation or thought of himself. Eventually Cecil might even learn to enjoy that sacrifice, that harmless normal offering, sharing himself with his perfect new lover...

Carlos thought about that hypothetical man with his hypothetical eyes and hypothetical smile and hypothetical desires, until the crack of breaking glass snapped him out of his reverie. He stared down at the flask shattered in his hand, opened his fist with a sigh and went to get the tweezers.

After he picked all the glass shards out of his bloodless flesh, he locked the radio away in the chemicals cabinet, out of sight. Then he determinedly went back to work. He was a scientist yet, and there was always more science to be done.

So his nights passed, until the evening came that Carlos was working in the empty lab and realized it had been two weeks. Thirteen days since he had heard Cecil's voice on the phone or the radio.

Carlos looked at the beaker in his hand and said aloud, to himself, "Good." And wondered how many more times he'd have to say it to begin to believe it.

He was still gazing down at the same beaker, fifteen minutes later, when there was a knock at the lab door. Carlos started, put down the beaker and went to answer it, frowning with annoyance at the interruption.

He was prepared to refuse some overly-helpful citizen, when he opened the door. Or else to offer a bribe, if it was another pair of Suspiciously Ambiguous Property Insurance salesmen. So he was reaching for his wallet, even as he said, "If you're here to donate, you're a couple days early—"

Then he stopped. It wasn't a donor, nor a salesman, but Cecil, leaning against the door-jam.

"Hello, Carlos," Cecil said, rubbing his neck in an abashed manner. "I apologize for not calling ahead, but I'm not sure your phone is working."

Carlos swallowed. "It's working," he said, thinking frantically. He had a script planned for this, a monologue of not-you-it's-me and we're-going-different-directions and let's-still-be-friends. How he'd lied about his disinterest in sex and the taste of Cecil's blood. How Cecil wasn't ever really what he'd wanted and he'd tried to make it work but let's face facts like mature adults...

But every time he'd rehearsed it in his head, Cecil had been confused, or frustrated, or angry. Not smiling at Carlos with a weak but gentle smile, like he was hurting but happy anyway, just to see Carlos before him.

"What—what are you doing here?" Carlos stammered, trying to collect himself, fighting not to return that smile. "I've got a lot of science to do; I don't have time for dinner, or a date, or—"

"I know," Cecil said. "Please excuse the interruption, this shouldn't take long. I'd have let myself in, but I didn't want to tarnish the handle," and he raised the hand pressed to his neck, revealing fingers smeared with sticky red.

Carlos gaped at the bloody hand, at Cecil, still leaning heavily against the side of the door. "Cecil—? Mother of god, are you all right?"

Cecil glanced at the blood, then back to Carlos. "As a matter of fact, no," he said, and collapsed.

It was only thanks to vampiric reflexes that Carlos caught him before his head cracked into the door jam. Cecil sagged in his arms; Carlos lifted him up and carried him into the lab.

Cecil clung to him, mumbling, "Oh, Carlos, you're so strong and supportive..." Under the fluorescent lights, his skin was gray-tinged, cool even to Carlos's undead touch. Carlos brought him to the backroom, laid him down on the cot and carefully blotted his neck with tissues to examine the injury beneath the blood.

Cecil plucked at his sleeve, his face drawn with concern. "Your pristine coat—you shouldn't—"

Carlos glanced at the red stains spattering the white lab coat, shook his head. "To hell with the coat, that's what it's for. Cecil, what happened?" The wound was on the opposite side of the neck from where Carlos had bitten him, but the fang-marks were unmistakable, no longer bleeding but still red and angry, swollen like insect stings. "You promised, you promised me you wouldn't—"

"I didn't _let_ her bite me," Cecil said, desperation strengthening his voice. "I protested most strenuously, when the vampire confronted me outside the station after the show. But she said the cabal had had enough of me talking about undead interests on the radio. And she was so strong; I only managed to get away because Khoshekh meowed through the window and surprised her. You'd think she'd never heard a cat before. Please believe me, Carlos, if I could've escaped sooner, I would have, I swear—"

"I believe you," Carlos said. He cupped his hand to Cecil's cheek, clammy with cold sweat. "Just hold on, Cecil, I'll call an ambulance—"

"That—won't do any good," Cecil said, sinking back on the cot. His breaths were coming shallower, his voice catching between them. "The secret police would've already summoned one, if modern medicine could help now."

"So..." Carlos shuddered, his fingers unconsciously curling around the familiar line of Cecil's jaw. "How long will it take for you to change? Have your fangs started to grow?"

Cecil coughed, shaking his head. "They won't. I checked with city hall, as a precaution, some days back; it turns out my radio contract doesn't allow it, and since the town's at its undead quota anyway..."

"So you won't become a vampire?" Carlos said. He sank onto the cot with a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. Then how long will it take you to recover?"

"Not long." Cecil coughed again, weak and rattling. "Depending on one's definition of recovery..."

Carlos went cold in a way that had nothing to do with his mortality or lack thereof. "What do you mean?"

"The cabal vampire would have come after me, if there was any chance I could live through the night," Cecil said, as matter-of-factly as he reported fire sales at the Ralph's.

"No," Carlos said blankly. He put his arms around Cecil to lift him up. "Come on, I'll take you to the hospital, get you a transfusion—"

"Can't." Cecil shook his head. "My blood-type's too rare, and besides it wouldn't help now anyway."

It wasn't plasma or hemoglobin he needed, but life itself. And that could only be taken from someone else.

"Then what can I do?" Carlos demanded. "Science must be able to help, even if medicine can't; why else did you come to the lab?"

"Because you'd be here," Cecil said, far too calmly. "I thought maybe you could learn something about feeding, or the cure, examining me."

"Cecil—"

"And more than that, I wanted to see you." Cecil's expression twisted with guilt, though his gaze stayed fixed on Carlos's face. "I'm very sorry; I know you don't want to see me anymore. It was selfish for me to come. But dying doesn't bring out the best in me. And you won't have to again, after tonight."

"No," Carlos said. "No, that's—I wanted to see you, of course I _wanted_ to!"

Cecil blinked at him. "You did? But you said...you didn't answer my calls...?"

"I wanted to see you, but I couldn't," Carlos said. "I couldn't risk it. I knew you'd offer again, if I did—you'd keep asking me to drink, and eventually I'd stop saying no. Eventually I'd be asking you, I'd be the one begging you for your blood..."

"You wouldn't have had to beg," Cecil said, letting his head fall back on the cot. "I'd have said yes, every time."

"And that's why! That's why I left—that's why I couldn't see you again. I couldn't become something that would do this to you, I couldn't let that happen."

"But if it was what you wanted...?"

"I never wanted to drink your life, Cecil; I wanted to share it." Carlos clasped Cecil's hand, trying to rub warmth into his plastic-cool skin. "I wanted to live with you. I wanted to coax you out of bed every morning with coffee and kisses, I wanted to listen to your show broadcasting as I worked, I wanted to keep you warm when the nights get cool. I wanted to take you to a beach someday, a real beach, so you could see what sunlight looks like on ocean waves. I wanted to grow old with you."

"Oh," and Cecil smiled, weak and wan but heartfelt, as his eyes drifted shut. "Neat."

"No it isn't!" Carlos was abstractly aware that his voice was cracking, his vision blurring as he tried to focus on Cecil's face, haggard but calm. Content, even, as if having Carlos here, holding his hand, was all he wanted. "I broke up with you to protect you from this, that was the only reason. If I'd known other vampires would come after you—I should've realized the danger, I should've left Night Vale before the cabal ever came after me—this never should've happened to you—"

"S'all right, Carlos." Cecil's voice was only a mumble, barely audible through his ashen lips. "I don't mind...was worth it, being with..."

He trailed off, his head listing to the side, his fingers going slack in Carlos's.

"Cecil?" Carlos said frantically. "Cecil— _I_ mind, I mind all of this! You can't—Cecil—!"

Cecil didn't answer, but he exhaled, inhaled again, just loud enough for Carlos to hear the wheeze of breath in his struggling lungs.

Carlos's own breath was stopped in his throat, and while technically oxygen was no longer a physiological requirement, black spots still swirled before his vision, looming darkness pressing in. He made himself inhale, deep and slow, focusing on the superfluous action to compose himself. _Stop panicking. You're a scientist. The first thing a scientist is is self-reliant._

And wasn't it the height of irony, that the one person who actually believed that absurd aphorism was the one person who Carlos could not live without.

"Hold on, Cecil," Carlos said. "Just keep holding on, while I figure this out." He curled his bloodstained fingers around Cecil's wrist, measuring the flutter of his thready pulse. The beats were slowing. Still pumping blood through his veins; but there wasn't enough life in that volume to sustain him.

The blood was a conduit, the medium of transference, according to Cecil. The vampire who bit him was no longer drinking from him, but was still drawing life, as Carlos had, doing science through the night as Cecil slept. Until too much was drained to sustain his body.

A transfusion could transfer life back to Cecil; but only at the expense of whoever gave it. He couldn't ask anyone to make that sacrifice, trade their life for Cecil's.

If only Carlos could offer it himself, could give Cecil the sacrificed blood that nourished his existence now—return his own blood to him, whatever was left in Carlos. But there was no way to draw it. Vampires had no blood to give, their veins running dry; what he drank was absorbed directly into his undead flesh.

Unless his undead physiology were altered, reversed, so he might extract a pint or two...

Carlos bolted upright, all but sprinting for the refrigerated unit in the corner of the lab. He almost wrenched its insulated door off the hinges as he flung it open, but for all his unnatural strength his hands were trembling as he took a bottle of compound 17 from the rack of test samples.

He steadied his hands with effort, got out a jet injector and measured a dose of the compound into the cartridge. It wasn't the first time he'd considered the optimal methods of introduction; while oral delivery was theoretically possible, intramuscular injection should be faster.

He put the injector to his arm, drew an unnecessary breath before he triggered it. It occurred to him that Cecil would not care for this solution. No more than Carlos himself had wanted Cecil's life.

But then, it was Cecil's life either way, wasn't it; Carlos wasn't alive at all. How could a dead thing love anyone? This was all he could offer Cecil, in the end. Return what had been so generously sacrificed to him. It wasn't enough; but then it would never be. That had been true before he'd ever become a vampire. Equal and opposite reactions never applied to Cecil, no more than any physics applied to Night Vale; Carlos could never give Cecil as much as Cecil gave him, no matter how long he existed.

Focused as he was, Carlos didn't register sound of the door opening. Not until an alto voice said, "Ah, excellent, you're here."

Carlos dropped the injector in surprise, practically vaulting the nearest lab counter to face the intruder. He was expecting a secret police officer or vague but menacing agent; but the woman standing in the doorway was no government official. She had on a white lab coat—like his own, except her collar was trimmed in thick gray fur that might have been wolf-hide, and underneath it she wore form-fitting red dress. Her eyes had the same red sheen and her lips were painted to match. Her perfunctorily polite smiled displayed gleaming fangs.

She was such the perfect picture of a vampire that under other circumstances Carlos might've been embarrassed about how he wore his own fangs. Now he just noted that he'd never encountered her at the dance club or the blood bank. He was sure he'd never seen her in Night Vale before.

The conclusion was obvious, but Carlos tried to keep the revelation from showing on his face as he came forward. The backroom's door was halfway open, but from the other vampire's position she couldn't see inside. Carlos was careful not to glance in that direction, and tucked his right arm behind his back to conceal the blood on his lab coat's sleeves. "Good evening," he said. "Um, are you new in town? I thought I'd met all the local vampires."

"I'm passing through on business," the other vampire said. "Business with you, as it happens. I'm from the county cabal. We'd like to offer you a more exclusive membership in our organization."

"Really?" Carlos concentrated on meeting her crimson-tinged gaze as he took another step forward, towards her, and his desk. The second drawer down held a taser and a .50 caliber revolver—scientists in Night Vale must always be prepared. "I'm afraid I can't afford much higher dues."

"We're looking for a different kind of payment from you," the woman said. "Specifically your research on vampires."

"There must be some mistake," Carlos said, advancing another step. The drawer was only two meters away. "My research is into Night Vale in general, not any particular—"

"You misunderstand me," the vampire said, a touch impatiently. "We're not opposed to your work; on the contrary, what we've seen of it is impressive, especially considering you're working alone, and handicapped by hunger, from the look of you. While your areas of concentration are a bit unorthodox, you've made breakthroughs in weeks that took other vampire scientists years to discover. We want to work with you. To give you a chance to expand your research, to the benefit all of our kind."

Her heels clicked on the tile floor as she approached him. If she turned her head now she might glimpse Cecil, through the ajar door.

"That sounds like quite an offer," Carlos said, trying to sound intrigued. "I'd be interested in seeing your own research. Have you found a viable cure?"

"A cure?" The woman smirked. "What, do you actually think you're sick? We're far beyond disease. Any illness you feel is due to needless dietary restrictions. They're not an uncommon issue with fledglings; we have counselors and programs to help you overcome the impairments of mortal morality. There should've been a number in your welcoming packet."

"What if I don't want to overcome it?" Carlos asked. "If I want to be mortal again?"

The vampire rolled her eyes. "It takes all kinds, I suppose. If you cooperate, and focus your efforts on more productive avenues of research, we may be able to indulge some of your...morbid desires."

"Well, in that case," Carlos said, and lunged for the armed drawer.

He didn't make it. Though he managed to open the drawer, before he could grab any weapon, she was upon him. He'd miscalculated; his own reflexes barely exceeded an ordinary human's, while the other vampire was far, far faster. He hardly saw her move, just the blur of action, before a crack across his jaw left his head ringing and his lip raw where his fangs scraped it.

The vampire's hand curled around his neck, filed fingernails digging into his trachea. She lifted him up easily, until his toes barely touched the ground. Her red-cast eyes bore into his, as mercilessly cold as her hand was burning hot against his neck. "You're making this more difficult than it has to be," she said. "We're willing to be quite magnanimous."

Carlos glared back at her, choking out with what breath could squeeze through her grip, "I've got no interest in working with killers."

"Killers? Says the scientist with the blood on his sleeve—did you think I wouldn't notice? Fresh, isn't it?" She took a sniff, then arched her eyebrow. "And familiar..."

"So it was you," Carlos said. "You're the one who attacked Cecil!"

"Cecil was the radio host? Yes, he was the other half of my assignment. It was his own fault; we repeatedly requested he desist discussing vampire feeding and cures on his show. This was the third warning."

" _Warning?_ I've seen what you did to him!"

"A warning to the mortals in this town, to stay out of our business," she clarified. "As well as to any of the local vampires who might be...inspired by your irrational pursuit of mortality. But you saw, did you? How is that?" Still gripping Carlos by the throat, she turned around the lab. Her eyes brightened as she spotted the entry to the backroom. Dragging Carlos, struggling, over to it, she kicked the door wide open.

Cecil lay on the cot, bloodstained and motionless. Carlos couldn't see if his chest still rose, strained his ears but couldn't hear him breathing.

"Ah, there's not enough left in him to bother drinking," the vampire said in a tone of mild disappointment. "A shame; he was quite delicious."

Her casual dismissal made Carlos's nonexistent blood boil, even as relief surged through him. _Not enough_ meant something yet; Cecil was alive. Fueled by hope and rage, he swung his arm at the other vampire's head as he slammed his shoe into her shin. 

She ignored the kick and batted his hand aside with effortless exasperation, her cold eyes studying him. "Why so upset? He claimed on his show that you were refusing to drink from him. Obviously you'd lost interest. —Oh, or were you actually saving him for a special occasion? In that case I apologize for finishing off your treat."

"Cecil's not finished yet!"

The woman shrugged. "Close enough; he will be by dawn for sure. My apologies for poaching, but I can make it up to you. Would you care for a French vintage? I have a marvelous one, young but a full body, crisp with fruity undertones, the most fetching blue eyes—"

"No, him—save him!" Carlos gasped out. "Save Cecil, and I'll collaborate with you—I'll work on any research you want me to, if you save him!"

The vampire glanced back at Cecil, evaluating, then shook her head. "It's too late; there's not enough left of him to turn. I suggest you drain the dregs and be content with that. I'm guessing he's your first; but there will be other thralls."

"He's not my thrall; he's my boyfriend."

"Your what...?" The vampire peered at Carlos, the contempt in her eyes giving way to surprise. "My stars and garters, you actually believe that, don't you. You think you love him. A mere mortal! Albeit an unusual one, by his taste..." She licked her lips, leering. "But not one of us. Face facts, boy; he's of no real consequence to you."

"Cecil is of _every_ consequence! If he dies—"

"Enough." The vampire tightened her grip around Carlos's throat, cutting off any more words. "I don't have the time for this nonsense; I don't intend to stay overday in this scorching hellhole. So I'll make this simple: either cooperate, gather up your research and come with me back to HQ now; or I'll snap your neck and burn this lab down around your broken body, before you can heal."

The threat wasn't hyperbole; Carlos could feel the iron strength of the fingers around his neck, their searing heat. She'd fed recently and well.

Fed on Cecil—this was Cecil's blood warming the hand around his neck. Cecil's life giving her this preternatural strength, while Cecil himself slipped away.

"Do you understand me?" the vampire asked.

Carlos nodded his head as much as he could. 

"So what will it be?" 

She loosened her grip slightly, allowing Carlos air enough to wheeze, "I'll come with you. Just let me get together my data and equipment."

And hopefully the quaver in his voice would be mistaken for fear.

The other vampire's red eyes were suspicious, but she released him. "Don't try anything," she threatened, moving to stand by the desk drawer, blocking his access. Folding her arms, she watched him, unwavering as Khoshekh stalking a poisonous moth.

Under that glare, Carlos went to the counter where he had been working before Cecil's arrival. He picked up the jet injector, checked the compound filling it, then set it aside to attend to his laptop, shutting it down and unplugging it. "So," he said, "can you tell me what kind of facilities you can offer? Should I bother to bring along any of this equipment?" He picked up two of the half-full beakers, nonchalantly, as if only posing them as examples.

Not nonchalantly enough, however; the cabal vampire blurred again, appearing beside him with her fingers locked around his wrists, keeping him from moving either beaker a millimeter further. "I warned you, boy," she snarled.

Carlos bared his fangs at her, far past caring how ridiculous it might look. "I know," he said, and tightened his fingers around both beakers. He had just enough unnatural strength of his own to shatter the glass, splattering the liquids inside.

The woman didn't flinch back, but then he wasn't expecting her to. The acid was too diluted to do either of them any harm; but the other liquid burned against his skin, and when splashed on the acid released a puff of pungent yellow smoke that caught in Carlos's nose, making him sneeze.

He was hoping for no more than that—a brief distraction, but maybe enough. But the effect on the other vampire was far more profound. At a mere whiff of the smoke, she began to cough and sneeze simultaneously. Thick gooey tears poured from her eyes as she staggered back, wiping frantically at her face. "What—" she choked out between fits, "what the hell—"

Carlos blinked clear his own watering eyes and lunged for the injector. The other vampire was hunched over, hacking and sneezing, her purely pale complexion splotched with violent scarlet to match her dress. Rubbing her eyes with her fist, she swung at him with her other, but blindly and clumsy. He ducked the blow, pressed the injector to her side and triggered it.

At the pinch of the injection she howled and sprang up like a red and white panther, crashing into him and knocking them both to the floor. Her vise-like grip locked around his wrists, forcing them down. Her eyes dripped gloppy tears onto his face as she bent over him. "What was that?" she snarled between coughs. "What was in those beakers?"

Carlos gazed up at her, unafraid. "Garlic extract."

"I wasn't told you were experimenting with chemical warfare! How is a fledgling like you not blinded?"

"I'm not sure," Carlos admitted. "Garlic doesn't bother me overly much; I didn't realize other vampires were so sensitive. At a guess, there are advantages to a restricted diet. But the effect on you should be declining now."

Indeed, the tears were no longer flowing so thickly from her eyes. More telling was the green blossoming through her chestnut hair, like the first grass of spring. Whatever served in place of a vampire's circulatory system was efficient; the compound took effect quickly.

The woman narrowed her eyes. They were bloodshot, but the scarlet glint to the irises was fading, revealing a hazel green to match her hair. "What have you done?" she demanded, glaring down at him.

"You said you were interested in my research," Carlos said. "I've given you a first-hand demonstration."

She blinked, her eyes widening at she looked down into Carlos's, seeing something unexpected. She opened her mouth, and he could see her running her tongue over her now-blunt teeth. "What—"

Carlos tipped his chin toward the lab counter beside them, where the polished metal doors showed a reflection of the laboratory—including the woman in white and red and green hair, kneeling on the floor over an empty space where Carlos's reflection should be.

The former vampire stared at herself, her grip around Carlos's wrists relaxing in her shock. He wrenched free, twisting around to flip her over. He was stronger than her now, and faster, and she was momentarily paralyzed by shock and the aftereffects of the change; he managed to hold her down long enough to bind her wrists and ankles with most of a roll of duct-tape, immobilizing her.

She yanked futilely against the tape, gnashing her blunt teeth as she shrieked, "What have you done to me!?"

"I've cured you," Carlos said.

"Ruined me— _destroyed_ me—!"

She was clearly as terrified as she was furious, and Carlos thought he should pity her, but there was nothing at all where his compassion should be. Maybe he had lost it with his heartbeat. Or maybe when Cecil's blood stained his sleeve. "It's only temporary," he said as he stood and went to the biologists' counter to get a hypodermic and an empty blood bag. "Admittedly, _how_ temporary I'm not sure; you're the first human test subject. Extrapolating from previous tests, you're more likely to revert to standard dead rather than undead, once you've run out of the life you've stolen. Unless you've researched a counteragent; or maybe you can be turned again. Anyway, for now I suggest you enjoy being mortal."

The former vampire spat curses and saliva at him as he crouched beside her. Ignoring both, he put his fingers to her throat, feeling for the carotid artery. Her pulse vibrated against his fingertips, fast with fear and anger, proof of the blood flowing in her newly restored vascular system.

By now he was accomplished as any nurse at drawing blood; even with the former vampire twisting and snapping at him with her blunt teeth, it was short work to find a vein in her arm. "Ow! What are you doing now?" she howled at the needle's jab. "You won't even use your fangs to feed? Pervert!"

"This isn't for me," Carlos said.

"For what, then? You're going to continue your research right now, on your first _human_ ," she grimaced, "subject?"

"Not exactly," Carlos said. "This has nothing to do with finding a cure." The red blood filling the bag looked human, at least, a thick deep red. No time to perform any scientific tests, but there was another way to verify it. He squeezed a single drop from the syringe onto his tongue.

The taste was unmistakable—not delicious, but definitely not revolting. Cecil's blood. Cecil's life on his tongue, and Carlos didn't know if he wanted to cheer or throw up.

"I thought you said it wasn't for feeding," the ex-vampire sneered. She watched Carlos carefully prepare a second hypodermic, and scowled in sudden comprehension. "No, you wouldn't—"

"You took Cecil's blood," Carlos said. "I'm returning it."

"No!" She twisted against the tape binding her arms, fighting to free herself. "You can't possibly believe—it would never work!"

"Do you have any evidence to support that claim?" Carlos studied her face, trying to read her haughty features. "Has such a solution been tested before, by any vampire scientists?"

"Not that I've ever heard. None of us are perverted enough to try _recycling_ blood!"

"I've never been called a pervert before," Carlos remarked, withdrawing the needle from her arm and taping gauze over it with another length of duct tape. It wouldn't do for her to bleed out Cecil's life. "There's a first time for everything, I suppose."

"You can't do this, it's too late for him! His life is mine now—mine!" she cried behind him, as he hurried to the backroom.

Cecil hadn't moved, laying limp and gray on the cot. He didn't appear to be breathing at all and for a moment Carlos was so frightened he imagined he could hear his heart pounding in his ears, though that organ hadn't so much as twitched for so long. But when he raised his hand over Cecil's colorless lips, he felt a faint puff of air. 

Cecil was holding on, just as Carlos had asked him to, and Carlos would have cried if he had the time. Instead he said, "Thank you," muttering under his breath, a steady monotone like a chant, "thank you, Cecil, just keep doing that, just keep breathing," as he set the hypodermic to Cecil's arm. Cecil didn't twitch as the needle pricked his skin. Carlos took a deep, unnecessary breath, then depressed the plunger.

Blood began to drain from the bag, but there was no immediate reaction, no change, except in Carlos, the illusion of his pulse thumping faint and erratic in his ears—but no, that was Cecil's pulse, resonating through Carlos's own body where his hand rested on Cecil's arm.

And it might be getting stronger, as Carlos focused upon it, picking up both pace and force—just barely; but maybe more than desperate delusion. He scrabbled for Cecil's wrist, turned it toward him to see his watch and counted the heartbeats as the secondhand ticked by. Yes, they were increasing, incrementally, gaining another beat with every twenty-five seconds.

He leaned over, rested his hand against Cecil's forehead, still cool and clammy but warming. Cecil's lips were warmer, too, when Carlos pressed his own to them.

His lab was no fairytale castle; Cecil didn't awaken with a kiss. But he exhaled, a soft sigh gusting against Carlos's cheeks.

Carlos's eyes were burning, worse than from the garlic extract. He scrubbed them dry in the name of scientific objectivity.

Outside the backroom, the former vampire continued to shout, "You won't get away with this! Even if your damned local police do nothing, when the cabal comes looking for me, and discovers what you've done—"

Carlos reluctantly let go of Cecil's arm, climbed to his feet and returned to the main lab room. He missed the rhythm of a heartbeat in his ears, but if he concentrated he could hear Cecil breathing. The woman had slumped back against the lab counter. Her face was as pallid as if she were once again a vampire, though her teeth were still dull as she sneered at Carlos. "Back for more?"

"Perhaps," Carlos said. "He seems to be stabilizing, but I'm waiting a little longer to evaluate. If my understanding's correct, it's not the amount of blood that matters as much as the direction of transference—I've either reversed the flow of energy, or else stopped it; I'm not sure which. Either way, his life is returning."

"Even if this does work, do you realize what you've done?" she demanded. "Do you understand the horror of what you've created? A poison that not only ends our existence, but our very nature—far from a cure, you've created a weapon. We keep our secrets as best we can, but there are those that hunt us; if they, or the rest of the world, learned of this—"

"You know, that did occur to me," Carlos said. "That's why I've made sure I have multiple backup copies of my research in various places. If anything ever happened to me, they'd go to all the scientists who I've left in my legacy. As well as emailed to a few more public outlets. —Don't look so surprised; I've been dealing with Night Vale's City Council for long enough to have learned a bit about leverage. I'd have taken precautions sooner if I'd realized your cabal would try to be a real threat."

The woman shook her head. "You wouldn't—you'd be in as much danger as any of us, if vampires were made public. For your own safety you should destroy this formula—"

"What makes you think I give a damn about my own safety?" Carlos inquired. "I came to Night Vale willingly, you realize."

"What about your lover, then? Even if you succeed in reviving him now, what about next time? Sooner or later you'll finally drink your fill from him, and what then?"

"I'm not going to feed on Cecil," Carlos said. "Never again."

"But you claim he's your boyfriend." The woman inclined her head, studying him curiously. "For all your research, you don't understand anything about what you truly are, do you. How else can we really love a mortal, except by drinking from them, sharing their life?"

Carlos sighed, crouching to meet her temporarily human eyes. "I might not know much about vampires, but you don't know a damn thing about love. There are all kinds of ways to love somebody, or to share their life. Even for me. I'm not brave enough or strong enough to manage the best of them; I'm not Cecil. But I'll do what I can, however I can now. For him.

"So you better hope that this works," and Carlos held up the syringe. "Because if it doesn't—if he dies, if you actually killed Cecil—then I've decided that I'm going to quit my research into a cure."

"Oh?" The vampire smirked. It was marginally less appalling without the fangs. "So that's what it'll take to convince you of our power?"

Carlos shook his head. "I'm not going to turn it over to you, either," he said, calm over the silence in his chest, quiet enough to listen to Cecil's breathing between his words. "Instead I'm going to drink every last drop of stolen blood in your veins, and burn whatever's left behind.

"Then I'm going to make up more of the formula, and do the same to every other vampire in town. While I'm at it, I'll contact those hunters you mentioned, and find out how much they'll pay for vampire poison. And we'll see if your cabal and all their research can stop me, when I'm fully fed and fully funded. It will be an experiment, and I have my own hypothesis what the result will be.

"Once I've verified it, I'll replicate the results with every other cabal in this state, then in this country, then on this planet. Until I've proved it absolutely. And when that's done, I'll lay myself down on the final pyre I build. So that no one else loses someone they love to this plague, ever again."

The vampire was staring at him. Her eyes were so wide that white showed all round the hazel. "You're insane."

"Scientists prefer 'mad'," Carlos corrected. "But I'm a vampire now. So maybe you should just say monstrous."

The vampire swallowed. "If your...what if he does survive? What then?"

Carlos rocked back on his heels, stroking his chin as he studied her. "If he recovers, then I may have a different proposition for you..."

 

* * *

 

The sun rose late, and sluggishly, dragging itself reluctantly above the horizon as if it was recovering from a night worse than Carlos's.

Carlos pulled up the blinds on the laboratory windows, but didn't watch the dawn. Instead he sat on the edge of the cot to observe the golden light slowly seep across Cecil's face, erasing the shadows and lines of fatigue and pain.

When the sunbeam reached his eyes, the lashes fluttered. "Cecil?" Carlos asked quietly, and at last his eyes blinked open to settle on Carlos's face.

"Hmm," Cecil said, his voice drowsy, slow and sweet as dark molasses. "So I failed to die after all?"

He might've sounded relieved, or else resigned. Carlos grinned either way. "Apparently so."

"Carlos?" Cecil's sleepy smile melted into a frown as he woke further. "The sun—you shouldn't—!"

He reached up his hand to shield Carlos's eyes from that light, but Carlos caught it instead in his, twined their fingers together. "It's all right," he said. "It doesn't bother me now."

"But...wait, your fangs—"

Carlos widened his grin to show off his teeth. He couldn't stop running his tongue over them; it was going to take time to get accustomed again to the blunt crowns.

Cecil sat up on the cot to take Carlos by the arms, grinning back twice as wide. "You found the cure! Oh, how marvelous! Happy day! How? Was I any help?"

Any doubts Carlos might have had about Cecil's true feelings, about his fangs or anything else, vanished like mist in the warmth of his joy. "You were," Carlos said, "absolutely essential. Though technically I'm not cured, not exactly."

"You're not? But your fangs, the sunlight—"

"It's a temporary fix," Carlos explained. "I'm still a vampire, but the, ah, symptoms of my condition are suppressed. The cabals have a treatment they've been using for some time to disguise their members; it's been refined to the point that it mimics mortality almost exactly. So no increased strength or reflexes or healing. But as long as I take it regularly, I'll have a pulse and can go out in the sun. And it should reset my circadian rhythms as well, so I can sleep nights again."

Cecil nodded, but his smile had faded. He cupped Carlos's cheek in his hand, ran his thumb over his lips. "But if you're still a vampire, what about feeding?"

"With this treatment, I'll need much less blood to sustain myself. So the donor schedule should be enough, until I find a real cure. Which I have several promising leads on—the cabals have quite a lot of data, though it's not a line of research they've pursued themselves. Apparently hunters have, however, so I'll be looking up some of those and see if any will collaborate."

"Wow," Cecil said, "it sounds like the cabal is being really helpful."

Carlos started guiltily. "Don't worry, Cecil, I'll only be communicating with them remotely, you'll never have to deal with them again. And the one who attacked you has her own problems to contend with; she won't be coming back to Night Vale anytime soon. I'm so sorry you had to go through that."

"That's all right, I know what bureaucracies are like," Cecil said, with the magnanimity of a man used to dealing with Night Vale's city hall. "I'm just glad the cabal is coming through for you now."

"Well..." Carlos coughed. "It's not strictly altruistic cooperation. I, ah, may have threatened their existence and everything they hold dear."

"Really?"

"I had to," Carlos said, "they were threatening everything _I_ hold dear."

Cecil's eyes widened in horror. "They threatened your science?"

"Yes," Carlos said, gazing into Cecil's eyes. There were twinned reflections of himself in the black of Cecil's pupils. "And worse, they threatened you."

Cecil blinked once, then twice. "Oh," he said, soft and surprised.

"They won't again," Carlos said. "The risk is too great for them to go after either of us, I've seen to that. No cabal will lay another fang on you. If they do, I'll destroy them—every last vampire on this planet, if I have to. And they know what I am now; they know I have the tools to do it, and the will."

"Oh, Carlos," Cecil said, softer still. He pulled back, and there was something in his expression that Carlos couldn't identify. Disbelief, or horror. As if in the sunlight he could finally see Carlos properly, finally recognize the monster Carlos had become.

Carlos couldn't speak. His new pulse thudded too loudly in his ears. There was nothing he could say to defend himself; the truth was the truth. And he had already tried to leave Cecil once; he didn't have the strength to again. Cecil would have to be the one to walk away this time, and Carlos readied himself, as Cecil opened his mouth and said,

"How sweet!"

"...Sweet?"

Cecil smiled at Carlos, soppy and adoring. "No one has ever threatened to eradicate an entire species for me before."

Carlos stared at his boyfriend. Cecil met his gaze contentedly, like he would be happy to sit here admiring Carlos's fangless smile until sunset.

Finally Carlos shook his head. "Sometimes, Cecil, I wonder what I ever did to deserve you."

"Do you want me to tell you?" Cecil said, in that particularly sinister tone that Carlos had yet to figure out whether was joking or not, and was always afraid to ask.

Instead, Carlos leaned forward and kissed his boyfriend, enjoying the warm ease of it, without having to worry about anyone's lips getting cut. If he skipped a dose of the suppressant the fangs would grow back; but he decided not to mention that to Cecil for the moment. It could be a surprise for a special occasion.

Now Carlos just remarked, "The morning shift will be arriving at the lab soon."

Cecil nodded and got up from the cot, a little stiffly but finding his feet. Carlos rose with him, putting an arm around him even though Cecil didn't need the help. The sunlight was returning the proper color to his complexion; his collar and Carlos's lab coat were the only remaining signs of last night's events, and in Night Vale a few bloodstains were merely a fashion statement. "Should I leave you to do science, then?"

"No," Carlos said, "I'm taking the morning off. It's been too long since I had a real breakfast at the right time of day. I could drive you home, so you can get some proper sleep..." He saw Cecil's face fall, and continued, "though I'd like some company at the diner, if you don't mind?"

And Cecil beamed, as bright as the desert sunlight they walked out into together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos and comments, couldn't have finished it without you! As always, would love to know what you think...


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